MOUGIN'S 'PORT OF THE FUTURE.' cently become known which is of a nature to carry with it consequences of great importance—a new fact we say but not an unlooked-for one. A problem which was long regarded as insolu ble has finally been solved. Artillery the progress of which is continuous has found a method of firing without danger of premature explosion hollow projectiles charged with breaking explo sive substances. It must be admitted that this discovery is of a nature to modify the art of war profoundly. A re volution is announced which considered from the stand point of the extent of the re
MOUGIN'S 'PORT OF THE FUTURE.' cently become known which is of a nature to carry with it consequences of great importance—a new fact we say but not an unlooked-for one. A problem which was long regarded as insolu ble has finally been solved. Artillery the progress of which is continuous has found a method of firing without danger of premature explosion hollow projectiles charged with breaking explo sive substances. It must be admitted that this discovery is of a nature to modify the art of war profoundly. A re volution is announced which considered from the stand point of the extent of the re sults may be compared to that which occurred on the occasion of the invention of gunpowder. The firing of a melinite or gun-cotton shell is capable of producing sin gularly powerful effects the verification of which has al ready upset the principles of the art of constructing per Instructed by the first ex periments to which he has recently been led the mili tary engineer is unable to disguise the fact that with out the concomitance of great expense it is no longer pos sible for him to construct walls capable of resisting the power of these new methods of attack. At the same time he has found himself constrained and forced to suppress within his works those military structures hitherto called bomb proof because they consisted of a series of connnected vaults generally of 19 feet span and 3 feet thickness at the key and covered with a mass of earth from 9 to 13 feet in depth. Such structures by the force of things have become singularly vulnerable and easily destructi ble even. The military engineer can therefore no longer derive any material advantage from the ma sonry that has hitherto been the principal element of his structures ; but can he still count upon the proper ties of masses of earth properly arranged ? No; earth works cannot withstand the fire of projectiles filled with a breaking charge. Under the action of the burst ing of the shell the earth shoots up into the
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