On my return to America in 1898, I laid the matter before General A. R. Buffington, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, United States Army, and Admiral Charles O'Neil, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, United States Navy. General Buffington sent me to Sandy Hook, where my new explosive, Maximite, was subjected to a very thorough trial. The first 12-inch projectile charged with it was buried in sand in an armor-cased cellar, and exploded. More than seven thousand fragments of the projectile were recovered, being sifted out of the sand. Twelve-inch projectiles charged with Maximite were repeatedly fired through 12-inch armor-plate without exploding. Later, similar projectiles, armed with a fuse, were fired through the same plate and were exploded behind the plate. Although Maximite was fifty per cent. stronger than ordinary dynamite, yet it was so insensitive to shock as to be incapable of being exploded without the use of a very strong detonator. Maximite was the first high explosive successfully to be fired through heavy armor-plate, and exploded behind the plate, with a delay-action fuse. The fuse employed at that time was the invention of an army officer. Later, my fuse was subjected to a very long series of tests, and it was finally adopted in 1907 as the service detonating fuse by the United States Navy. If Uncle Sam would listen with an understanding mind to the language of the big guns now speaking on land and sea, he would immediately build a large number of huge howitzers. He would build a large number of good roads, capable of standing the tread of these howitzers. He would build as well a goodly number of battle-cruisers, as big and as fast as any afloat in foreign seas, and armed with guns ranging as far as the guns of any foreign power. CHAPTER VIII AËRIAL WARFARE In the present European War is being tested the enginery of destruction and slaughter that has been building and accumulating for half a century. It is the most stupendous experiment that the human race has ever tried. The magnitude of it confounds the senses; the horror obsesses the mind and stumps realization. The influence of improvements in all kinds of weapons and machinery of war is further and further to complicate strategics. The more that invention, science, and discovery are employed in the development and perfection of implements of war, the more the use of those implements requires high inventive genius and high scientific skill.