The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Floating and Anchored Mines How They Are Laid and the Means Employed to Remove Them--New Phase of Warfare UBMARINE mines unfortunately S play a great part in modern naval warfare; so much so that separate branches of the Navy are. specially trained in the laying and sweeping of mines. Although this method of con- ducting operations may be considered to be "hitting below the belt" (much more so than -attacks by submarines proper, when every officer and man aboard carries his life in his hands), there is some justification for it when forming part of a definite plan of action against an opposing fleet; not so, how- ever, when they are laid indiscriminately in neutral waters frequented by peaceful mercantile vessels of non-belligerent Bavions. It is often thought that the process of sweeping for mines is a very dangerous one, but although by no means free from danger, it is not so hazardous as would at first sight appear. As is well known the process consists of dragging a rope with or without a net swung between two vessels of the trawler type steaming on parallel courses at a certain distance apart. The rope or net is carried some distance below the water, and engages with the anchoring rope of the mine or the mine itself, causing the latter to come to the surface, when it can be exploded. Mines are: usually set at a distance of 18 or 20 feet below the sur- face, and as the mines-sweeping vessels used are specially chosen for their light draught, 10 feet maximum or _ therea- bouts, it follows that the risk they run of actually striking a mine is much less than in a vessel of deeper draught. Mines may be of several different kinds, and include floating and anchored mines; so far as is known the number of the former used is not nowadays very great as they expend such a large portion of their energy against a non-resisting medium, and are not so deadly as the latter, which are so placed as to explode in the region of the most vulnerable portions of a vessel, 1. ¢., about 20 feet below the surface. The method of anchoring them at a certain pre-deter- mined distance below the surface of the water is very ingenious albeit very simple. From the mine proper is sus- pended a windlass box, which contains a barrel on which a rope is coiled, to- gether with mechanism for controlling it. This controlling mechanism is secured to a rope, which is made fast to a weight, and the amount of rope between this weight and the windlass box is equal to the exact distance below the surface at which it is desired the mine shall be sus- pended. On being thrown overboard the mine floats on the surface while the windlass box, with the weight hanging below it, commences to sink, the wind- lass unwinding as necessary; aS soon as the weight touches the bottom the ten- sion of this lowest portion of rope is released, and this locks the barrel so preventing any more rope from being uncoiled. The weight of the windlass box being greater than the buoyancy of the mine, the latter, therefore, com- mences to sink until it is below the surface by an amount equal to the height the windlass box was above the bottom when the weight grounded, namely, the length of rope by which the weight is secured to the windlass box. Unless any special :-arrangements are provided this distance must necessarily vary with the rise and fall of the tide, but with a 16-foot tide and a mine laid at near tide at a depth of 20 feet its maximum and minimum depths are 28 and 12 feet; the range between these two represents the distance below water at which it is fairly certain to cause the most vital damage. Very ingenious have been some of the devices embodied in these deadly engines of destruction. One of the latest types is the oscillating mine, which has a propeller fitted underneath, by means of which it continously rises and sinks be- tween certain pre-arranged depths, such as from 20 to 30 feet down to just below the surface. It is a somewhat curious thing that in all the technical discussions on battleship design probable effect of submarines and modern torpedoes, which has taken place during recent years, very little was heard respecting the damage likely to be done by submarine mines. The question of protecting a vessel against torpedo attack has often been raised, and_ battleships have actually been so designed as to give some substantial protection against the explosion of torpedoes. The burst- ing charge that can be contained in a mine is much greater than can be fitted in torpedoes, and hence the effect of striking a mine is likely to be more seri- ous than a successful attack by torpedo. The only possible manner in which pro- tection can be given against mine explo- sions is by a very minute system of water-tight sub-division combined with immensely strong bulkheads; this, of course, need be confined to the fore part of the vessel only, as it is highly improb- able that the after portion would strike a mine after the fore part had success- fully passed it, unless the helm were hard over. Whether it is possible to make the fore part of a vessel sufficiently strong and sufficiently minutely sub-divided to give any reasonable protection against -- such an explosion is very difficult to say, as it is believed that no big ship that has struck a mine of recent years has sur- vived, and so enabled us to judge of the effect of the explosion on the vessel's structure. It would, however, appear to be impracticable to attempt to so design war vessels that they could successfully resist mine explosions, especially as these might easily detonate the charges in her magazines. The present practice of sweeping is aparently the only reliable method of coping with this modern branch of deadly marine warfare.-- Liverpool Journal of Commerce. Obituary John Phillip Holland, inventor of the submarine boat, died at his home in Newark, N. J-, on Aug. 13, in his 72nd year. The invention of a submarine had been virtually an obsession with Mr. Holland practically since the civil war but it was not until 1898 that he was able to build a submarine torpedo boat. This submarine boat, known as the Holland, was purchased by the government directly after the conclusion of the Spanish-American war. Since that time hundreds of them have been built in various parts of the world. Transatlantic steamship. service is again becoming regular. With the ex- ception of the Oceanic, Cymric and Min- neapolis, requisitioned by the British government, all the passenger liners of the International Mercantile Marine Co. are now in regular service. Reports show that since Aug. 1 more than 25.000 passengers have been brought over to the United States. Antwerp and South- ampton are for the present closed ports, and vessels scheduled for there will go to Liverpool instead. The last issue of American Wire Rope News, published by the American Steel & Wire Co., is devoted to the Panama canal and is one of the most intelligent descriptions of the canal that we have ever read and it is interesting to note how large a part wires and cables have played in its construction. eT ee EE SI EN NL I Ue ENE NNO i ia i a a I ih oe: ee i dln We he