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21

, most of whom have adopted his system.

All our ports are provided with flotillas and torpedo boats, and with schools in which the officers and men charged with this service are trained by frequent exercises. It was near L'Orient, at Port Louis, that we were permitted to be witnesses of these maneuvers, and where we saw the torpedo boats that were lying in ambush behind Rohellan Isle glide between the rocks, all of which appeared familiar to them, and start out seaward at the first signal. It was here, too, that we were witnesses of the sham attack against a pleasure yacht, shown in one of our engravings. A torpedo boat, driven at full speed, stopped at one meter from the said yacht with a precision that denoted an oft-repeated study.

[Illustration: MODE OF FIRING TORPEDOES.]

Before we close, we must mention some very recent experiments that have been made with a torpedo analogous to Whitehead's, that is to say, one that runs alone by means of helices actuated by compressed air, but having the great advantage that it can be steered at a distance from the very place whence it has been launched. This extraordinary result is obtained by the use of a rudder actuated by an electric current which is transmitted by a small metallic cable wound up in the interior of the torpedo, and paying out behind as the torpedo moves forward on its mission. The operator, stationed at the starting point, is obliged to follow the torpedo's course with his eyes in order to direct it during its submarine voyage. For this reason the torpedo carries a vertical mast, that projects above the surface, and at the top of which is placed a lantern, whose light is thrown astern but is invisible from the front, that is, from the direction of the enemy. A trial of this ingenious invention was made a few weeks ago on the Bosphorus, with complete success, as it appears. From the shore where the torpedo was put into the water, the weapon was steered with sufficient accuracy to cause it to pass, at a distance of two kilometers, bet

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