One citizen had a remarkable mine-catcher which, he said, "misses none; it sees and feels for you and catches all, if the sea is strewed with mines." He offered to sell his model for only $250,000. We were offered an automatic field-gun that, placed in Washington, could be operated by electricity from Texas. One man could operate a thousand of them, the inventor claimed. Placing these guns all along the German lines in France, the operator, seated at his switch-board in Paris, could play on the keys like a typewriter, spraying the Teuton lines with deadly missiles from Ypres to Verdun. Another scheme was to put guns on top of all the skyscrapers in New York to ward off aerial attack; and to build a machine that would gather all the electricity in the metropolis, and project it by wireless far to sea, sinking hostile vessels as if they had been struck by lightning. Mobilizing the dogs of America, sending them to France and "sicking" them on the Germans was a proposition that might not have appealed to dog-lovers so much as to the ferocious fighting men who wanted to bite the Germans and "eat 'em up." Mechanical soldiers capable of marching, fighting and capturing man soldiers were proposed. You would only have to fill them with ammunition, wind them up and let them go. The German fleet at Kiel could have been easily destroyed, if the floating torpedo suggested had been a success. Its originator proposed to launch them in channels when the tide was going in, let them float into the German harbors and blow up everything afloat. These absurdities gave a touch of humor to the arduous task of developing new methods and inventions--a task well performed by the naval experts, civilian scientists and inventors who so patriotically devoted their time and talents to the winning of the war. CHAPTER XXVIII BUILDING A THOUSAND SHIPS SIX HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS FOR DESTROYERS--"WARD" LAUNCHED 17-1/2 DAYS AFTER KEEL WAS LAID--"REID" COMPLETED IN 45 DAYS--GREAT DESTROYER PLANT BUILT AT SQUANTUM--PATRIOTS IN OVERALLS--WHY WERE NOT MORE DESTROYERS BUILT BEFORE THE WAR?--NEW NAVY WILL SURPASS ALL OTHERS--REDUCTION OF ARMAMENT. "Destroyer _Ward_ launched seventeen and a half days after laying of keel," was the message from Mare Island Navy Yard that announced a new world's record in ship construction. In pre-war days from twenty months to two years had been required to build a destroyer. Now they were being completed in a fraction of that time. All the yards were working at top speed, far excelling any previous accomplishments, but Mare Island had set a new pace hard to equal.