Search lights and incandescent lights are advantageously used with balloons. In submarine boats electricity will one day be very useful. Submarine diving will play a part in future wars, and the diver's lamp will be electrical.
Progress has been made also in constructing "electrical guns," in which the cartridge contains a fuse which is ignited by pressing an electric button on the gun. A better aim can be had with it, when perfected, than with one fired by a trigger. At present, according to Lieut. Fiske, this invention has not reached the practical stage, and the necessity for a battery to fire a cartridge is decidedly an objection. But the battery is very small, needs little care, and will last a long time. The hard pull of the ordinary trigger causes a movement of the barrel except in the hands of the most highly skilled marksmen, and this hard pull is a necessity, because the hammer or bolt must have considerable mass in order to strike the primer with sufficient force to explode it. Having the mass, it must have considerable inertia; hence it needs a deep notch to hold it firm when jarred at full cock, and this deep notch necessitates a strong pull on the trigger. But with an electric gun the circuit-closing parts are very small and light, and can be put into a recess in the butt of the gun, out of the way of chance blows. Thus a light pressure of the finger is alone needed to fire it, while from the small inertia of the parts a sudden shock will not cause accidental closing of the circuit and firing of the gun.
Our readers have already been informed through these columns that, notwithstanding the refusal of the Attorney-General, Mr. Garland, to institute suit for the nullification of the Bell patent, application has again been made by the Globe Telephone Co., of this city, the Washington Telephone Co., of Baltimore, and the Panelectric Co. These applications have been referred to the Interior Department and Patent Office for examination, and upon their report the institution of the suit depends. The evidence which the companies above mentioned have presented includes not only the statement of Prof. Gray and the circumstances connected with his caveat, but brings out fully, for the first time, the claims of Antonio Meucci.