All this seems like a complicated bit of mechanism. So it is; but, as with all electrical appliances, it is difficult to understand and extremely simple to use them. It may surprise you to know that from the time that the range-finder sailors fix their telescopes on the enemy less than one second need elapse before the guns are fired. Of course every man is at his station. Each gun is already fixed at near the proper range. The range-finders give the exact distance. The man in the central office telegraphs it to the gunners. The gunners adjust their weapons and press down their buttons. The gun-firers wait to get the proper sight, probably in the same twinkling of an eye that all this information is being sent over the ship, and he finally fires the gun. Of course, where the ship is rolling or pitching considerably, the time between fixing the range and firing the gun may be longer. After the gun is all ready for firing, however, even the fifth of a second may make the difference between a hit and a miss, and hence the need for the lightning quickness of electricity.
The range-finder and the other appliances used with it are the inventions of Lieutenant Bradley A. Fiske, of the United States navy. No other navy than ours has them, although the naval authorities of other nations are thinking of adopting them. If we should have a war right away, we should have an advantage over an enemy. Constant experience has shown their complete success.
In another article we shall consider some more of these "trifles" that are used in connection with electricity on war-ships.
[A LOYAL TRAITOR.]
A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER III.
THE BURNING.
The fire must have eaten through the chimney, and had probably been burning in the walls along the staircase and in the floors of the rubbish chambers for some minutes before we had inkling of it. It was almost beyond imagining, the way it spread. But the steps of the staircase itself were firm underfoot, although inside the walls, and even to the roof, the roaring crackling flames were gutting the left wing of the house.