3-034-774 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Chatham Siege Operations: blowing up rafts on the Medway, 1871. British Army training. Illustration of '...the destruction, [by mines laid under water, across the river Medway], of a raft, with two or three effigies of men on board, supposed to represent an enemy's vessel, in tow of H.M.S. Bustler. The raft consisted of two old pontoons with timber lashed across them, and with an inverted mast descending eight or nine feet into water, the ordinary depth of a small vessel's keel. The torpedo, placed on a quadrant fixed under water at that depth, with a trigger and wire attached to it, was fired by the touch of the mast as the raft passed over it, and took effect with admirable precision The raft was cast high into the air, upon the very top of the mass of white foam and spray cast up by the explosion; and then its fragments, with the figures representing men, hung aloft an instant before they fell into the river. These experiments with mines under water were, performed under the direction of Lieutenant Armstrong, for Captain Malcolm, the Superintendent of Telegraphy'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.