Crimean War (1854-56).
Defence of Sebastopol Harbour, &c.—The Russians employed a large quantity of submarine mines, both electrical and mechanical, principally the latter, in their defence of the harbours of Sebastopol, Sveaborg, and Cronstadt.
According to General Delafield, U.S.A., the arrangement of the mechanical mines was entirely new, the conception and idea of an eminent Russian chemist, Professor Jacobi.
Electrical Mines.—No mention is made by the General of the employment of electrical mines, but the fact of a hulk being captured by the Allies at Yenikale, with a number of torpedoes on board, and all the arrangements necessary to explode them by electricity, such as Voltaic piles, electric fuzes, several miles of conducting wire, &c., is sufficient proof of this type of submarine mine being extensively used by the Russians in their harbour defences.
Many of their mechanical mines were picked up by the Allies, several of which were found to have their safety caps on. Owing to this neglect, and the smallness of the charge of the torpedoes (only some 25 lbs. of gunpowder), it is not to be wondered at that no serious injury was done to any ships of the allied squadron.
Deterred most probably by the failures of Bushnell, Fulton, and others in previous years with the submarine and other torpedo boat attacks, nothing of this description was attempted by either side.
Russian Mechanical Mines.—The Russian mechanical mines consisted of barrels of powder fitted with fuzes, so arranged that a blow would smash a glass tube containing sulphuric acid, causing the acid to mix with some chlorate of potash, resulting in combustion and the explosion of the mine.