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This operation is now about to be illustrated. The last experiments exhibited the power of offensive torpedoes. There are several different kinds, such as Mr Whitehead's fish-torpedo, the Harvey torpedo, and others." "Dear me," said my mother, with a perplexed air, "I should have thought, Mr Firebrand, that all torpedoes were offensive."
Thus it may be styled an automatic torpedo. The celebrated Whitehead fish-torpedo, beautiful and cleverly contrived though it be, can only advance straight to its object at a certain depth below the surface; but mine, as you see, by this arrangement of the main pneumatic engine, which connects the watch-work regulator with an eccentric wheel or fin outside, causes the torpedo to describe a curve of any size, and in any direction, during its progress.
Robin, who had seen him tip over, being a good swimmer, and prompt to act, went through the same hole like a fish-torpedo, and caught the brown boy by the hair, as he rose to the surface with staring eyes, outspread fingers, and a bursting cry.
Finally they would touch the living rag at the bottom, the gelatinous flesh of the fish-torpedo, receiving a series of electric shocks which quickly made them loosen their prey, laughing and raising the other hand to their jerking arms.
Soon the savages gained the reef, carried their canoe swiftly over, and launched on the open sea, cutting through the great rollers like a rocket or a fish-torpedo. Heavy timbers and stout planks could not be treated thus; nevertheless, the white men were so wild and strong, that when the boat finally gained the open sea it was not very far behind the canoe.
Instead of making futile efforts to break his bonds like them, he lowered his hairy head, and, with a howl and a tremendous rush, like a fish-torpedo, launched himself, or, as it were, took "a header," into the fiery man! "No fellow," as Jack himself afterwards remarked, "could receive fifteen stone ten into his bread-basket and go on smiling!"
The next step was the successful attack by the Confederate "fish-torpedo boat" David, on the Union ironclad Housatonic in Charleston harbor on February 17, 1864; and the next was the sinking of the Confederate ironclad Albemarle by a spar torpedo carried on a little steam-launch commanded by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. N., on October 27, 1864.
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