Reject Principle that All Submarines Are War Vessels

1916

Washington, Sept. 5. — To the proposal of the Entente allies that neutrals accept the principle that all submarines are vessels of war, the United States has dispatched a reply which it is understood holds to the principle that the characteristics of each individual submersible must govern the case.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 7.

Submarine Sunk a Aeroplane

1916

Berlin, Sept. 22. — The French submarine Fousaus has been sunk in the southern Adriatic by bombs dropped from Austro-Hungarian naval aeroplanes, the Austrian admiralty announced today. The entire crew of 29 men were rescued and made prisoners.

Sea Lions Helped to Detect U-Boats

1919

Design of Hydrophone Was Changed to Resemble Head of Acute Water Animal.

In the late months of the war some wild stories were published to the effect that the British naval authorities were training sea lions to catch German submarines. Of course this was ridiculous, but the story was based upon a fact, and that fact has only just been revealed.

It was at the recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, when Sir Charles Parsons, the president, delivered an address on "Science in War and Peace." In it he described the development of the binaural hydroplane, with which submarines are located by the sound they make. Early in the game it was discovered that the first forms of these instruments were useless when the vessel bearing them was in motion or when the sea was rough, because the noises made by the vessel's motion and by the waves drowned the noise of the submarine. This is where the sea lions came in.

Hear at Six Knots an Hour.

Sir Richard Paget, the eminent biologist, made experiments to learn how far these interesting animals could hear under water and at what speed their directional hearing ceased. These proved that the directional hearing of the lions was good up to six knots an hour.

Dr. Arthur Keith informed the naval experimenters that whales' ears are too small to receive sound waves in the usual way, but that the animals heard under water by the transmission of sound waves thru the bones of the head.

Design Was Changed.

Now, the whale's organ of hearing resembles the hydrophone. So the design of this was changed, and those used in the last year of the war were hollow bodies in the form of fish or porpoises, made of celluloid, varnished canvas or thin metal, filled with water and towed by the ship. The hydrophone was fixed in the head, and the towing cable carried the insulated wire leads to the telephone receivers of the observer on board the vessel.

These were towed some distance behind the ship, thus losing most of the noises made by the swift motion of this, and it was found that they registered directional sounds when traveling thru the water at speeds of fourteen knots and at considerable distances.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 9.

No More Last Forty Winks

1914

Fiend Has Invented an Alarm Clock That Simply Insists on One's Rising in the Morning

It has often seemed, after the announcement of an invention to which the attention of the entire civilized world has been called, that the human mind could scarcely invent anything more and fashion it in material form, but the countless dreams of inventors continue to be realized in astounding numbers.

Every week, every month, the trade journals advertise and comment upon new things in the lines which they represent and publish new ideas which this material labor-saving age seizes and makes its own.

An alarm clock which awakens you with the words of a disgusted wife who has breakfast on the table, and a large vessel which carries submarines over long distances by means of a "pouch" are among the newest offerings.

As an ever present need, the alarm clock will probably be put into more general household use than the ship with the "pouch" for carrying submarines. In the evening before retiring you set the clock for 6:30; at 6:30 you will probably get up. Here is what will waken you:

"Six-thirty, six-thirty, six-thirty; time to get up; get up, can't you? Get up you miserable, lazy man. Get up, get up, get up!"

The first clock of this kind was exhibited in 1900, but it cost $2,500 to make it. The present offering costs $25. If you are awake in the middle of the night and wish to know the time, press a button and the clock will tell you the nearest quarter hour as: "Two-fifteen," if it happens to be 2:13 or 2:18. The phonographic record is on an endless belt and the grooves in which the voice vibrations are recorded run lengthwise of the belt. The belt continues to give out sound until shut off when once started. So far the clocks have been supplied with belts which talk in thirty-five languages.