I immediately had a large tub made, then filling a copper case with powder, I screwed on to it the clockwork lock, and tied to it the pine box C, then suspending the whole Torpedo by a line in the tub of seawater; the end of the suspending line was tied to one end of a scale-beam. I then filled the pine box C with cork, until the whole volume of the Torpedo and box of cork would, when just covered with water, hold three pounds in equilibrio in the scale on the other end of the beam. The Torpedo being then three pounds heavier than water, had a sufficient tendency to sink; and being so balanced, would, while under water, be easy moved by a slight pressure to either side. Then, instead of tying the coupling line to the end of the Torpedo, as at A, I tied it to a bridle, as at B, which presenting the side on an angle to the tide, the pressure of the current in the direction of the arrow, would cause the Torpedo to sheer from B to G. This arrangement perfectly succeeded to sheer the Torpedo from its perpendicular C, and the side of the vessel to E, near the keel, a position, near which it should be to do execution. In this situation, the explosion being under the vessel, would have a great body of water to remove laterally, before it could get out by a line curving round her side. The water, when acted on in so instantaneous a manner as by the explosion of one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds of powder, does, for the instant, operate like a solid body; hence the explosion raises the vessel up with a great force, acting on a small portion of her bottom, which portion giving way, is the same in effect, as though a high sea had lifted her fifteen or twenty feet, and let her down on the point of a rock of three or four feet diameter. This, I believe, accounts for the certain destruction which will follow all explosions that take place near the keel. In all cases when the explosion is under water, the action will be perpendicular to the surface, as from B to C, for in the perpendicular, there are less particles to remove, and less resistance than in any diagonal, as for example, from B to D. The French papers, giving an account of the attack of captain Siccombe and lieutenant Payne, acknowledged that the Torpedoes blew up along side of the gun-brigs, but gave them only a violent shock and cant to one side; they spoke of the engines as things of little consequence and not to be feared. It is now, however, evident, that they owed the safety of the two brigs to the trifling circumstance of the Torpedoes not being properly balanced in water, and the coupling lines not being tied to a bridle, so as to make the Torpedoes sheer under the bottoms of the brigs. Fig. 3