Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/453

either of running toward the thing it sees, or of fleeing from it. That is the basic idea of the weapon
here pictured. Its movements are absolutely controlled by the beam that comes from a searchlight

less from shore now; can be made to stop, start, stop and swerve to right and left. Nevertheless, the secret of a reliable, light-controlled torpedo—for light-rays are more desirable than wireless—has not yet been entirely solved.

John Hayes Hammond, Jr., who has been widely heralded for his wireless experiments, joined hands not long ago with B. F. Meissner, an electrical engineering student of Purdue University, and together they designed and constructed an ingenious mechanism on wheels that would trail after a pocket lamp held before its selenium eyes in a most uncanny way. Using this same principle, a torpedo with selenium eyes that will follow the directions of light rays from shore, will eventually be developed; soon, it is to be hoped.

There have been two big obstacles to prevent the evolution of a controllable torpedo:

One is the lack of a suitable apparatus for transmitting sufficient light to control the mechanism at useful distances; the other is to accomplish the directing without interference from the enemy's ship. The solution of the problem demands a more scientific knowledge of selenium and its chemical properties.

Suppose that day had come and a hostile ship was booming into the harbor of New York, grimly determined to scatter our fair buildings to the four winds.

"Sic!" says the man on shore.

Almost with human intelligence, the glistening steel cylinder darts out towards the enemy, at a forty-mile-an-hour clip. Though at present such an occurrence is only a fancy, it may become a reality.