3-017-283 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Experiments with torpedo-shells at Chatham: explosion of a 440-pounder, 1865. '...Mr. Donald M'Kay, the extensive shipowner, of Boston,...has undertaken to help in introducing the contrivance of Messrs. Wood and Beardslee to the Governments and public of Europe. Mr. Beardslee...had sunk a torpedo charged with 440 lb. of powder in the mud and sand off Gillingham Point, at the entrance to Chatham Harbour... A boat's crew was dispatched from the operator's barge to establish electrical communication with the sunken shell, which was to be fired through a length of two miles of wire. This preliminary completed and the train all ready for firing...in an instant there rose from the placid bosom of the river high into the air a huge column of water, in shape and action much resembling those great waterspouts occasionally witnessed by sailors in mid-ocean...The splendid volumes of snow-white feathery spray soared quickly to a height of little less than 200 ft., and then fell gently again in exquisitely graceful curves into the vortex whence they had risen, leaving no trace of themselves behind, save a slowly-expanding circle of bubbling, foaming water, the muddy, yeasty aspect of which showed that the river had been stirred to its lowest depths'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.