Every-day Science: Volume VII. The Conquest of Time and Space

principles of gyroscopic action. The fact is quite otherwise. The idea of giving steadiness to such instruments as telescopes and compasses on sh

hat observations might be made when the actual horizon was hidden by clouds or fog. The inventor himself, Serson by name, was sent out by the British Admiralty to test the apparatus, and wa

S COSTLY

d sponsor for the idea, and who expended sums variously estimated at from fifty thousand to more than a million dollars in the futile attempt to carry it into execution, was the famous Sir Henry Bessemer, famed for his revolutionary innovations in the steel industry. It would appear that Bessemer's first intention was to make a movable room to be balanced by mechanisms worked by hand. But after his project was under way his attention was called to the possibility of utilizin

ave given thought to the problem-with the object, however, of applying the powers of the revolving wheel not merely to a single room but to an entire ship. I have personal knowledge of at least one inventor, quite unknown to fame, who believed that he had solved the proble

'S SUCCESSF

it on a small ship-a torpedo-boat called the Sea-bar, discarded from the German navy. The vessel is one hundred and sixteen feet in length and of a little over fifty-six tons' displacement. The device employed consists of a fly-wheel one meter in diameter, weighing just over eleven hundred pounds and operated by a turbine mechanism capable of giving it a maximum velocity

as set spinning and its secondary bearings released. In other words, it practically abolished the rolling motion of the craft, causing its decks to remain substantially level, while the ship as a whole heaved up and down with the waves. These remarkable results, with more

olving on its vertical axis. In other words, it is precisely as if one of the two gyroscope-wheels used in the Brennan car (greatly enlarged) were so placed that its main axis was vertical, its secondary axi

governed by almost human motives. If you apply a brake to prevent the longitudinal oscillations of the gyroscope, the effect, even though the fly-wheel still revolves at full speed, is precisely as if you pinioned the arms of a strong man, so that he saw the futility of resist

ed on the lateral trunnions, lunges forward and backward with terrific force, as if it would tear loose from its bearings and dash the entire ship into pieces. It causes the ship to pitch a trifle fore and aft as it does so; but meantime its axis stands rigidly erect in the lateral plane, though the waves push against the sides of the ship as before. The decks

IC ACTION WR

scale what Dr. Schlick's gyroscope accomplishes for the entire ship. Now it is clearly understood that a marine gyroscope on an absolutely fixed shaft cannot exercise its full action; but there is still a good deal of difference of opinio

tion in question, because their axes are fixed and they thus have not the opportunity for secondary oscillation to which I have referred. Meanwhile there are other equally competent mechanicians who believe that the vibration or oscillation of the body of the ship itself may suffice, under certain circumstances, to give the turbine precisely such freedom of motion as will enable it to exercise a powerful gyroscopic effect. Dr. Schlick himself contends, and seems with the aid of models to demonstrate, that such a gyroscopic acti

DANGERS OF T

s think that its use may not be unattended with danger. It has been suggested that under certain circumstances-for example, the sudden disturbance of equil

r an appreciable relation to the mass of the entire ship. Such a weight, revolving at a terrific speed and oscillating like a tremendous pendulum, obviously represents an enormous store of energy. It was estimated by Professor Lambert that a gyroscope of sufficient size to render even a Ch

ies of experiments will be necessary before the Schlick gyroscope will come into general use. The apparatus has been tested, however, on a German coast steamer. It may not be very long before craft of the size of Channel steamers and boats tha

a safe enough prediction that all battle-ships will be supplied with this mechanism in the not distant future. Amid the maze of engines of destruction on