devices been so perfected as to render it unnecessary for the Germans to
see until their quarry was so near, say a mile or two, that no expedient
in the way of low visibility would serve. It was then that our navy,
which had been following experiments in camouflage, accepted the dazzle
system for some of its transports, while retaining the leaden war-paint
for other transports and for fighting craft.

The dazzle system as applied on the _Leviathan_ and other vessels under
jurisdiction of the navy, has for its idea the disruption of outline and
deception as to the true course a vessel is following. The writer saw
the _Leviathan_ under way shortly after she was camouflaged, and at a
distance of two miles it was utterly impossible to tell whether she was
coming or going; and the observer could not tell whether she had three
funnels or six, or only one. It was noted that as her distance from the
observer became greater the vessel assumed a variety of effects. Once it
seemed as though both bow and stern had dropped off, and finally the big
craft suggested in the morning haze nothing so much as a cathedral set
in the middle of the bay.

Effects of this sort are produced by vertical stripes of black and white
at bow and stern, by long, horizontal lines of black and blue, and by
patches of various hues. One funnel is gray, another blue and white,
another all blue. There can be no question that the sum total of effect
offends the eye and dazes the senses. Submarines have been known to make
errors of eight degrees in delivering torpedoes at dazzle boats even at
close range.

In addition to camouflage experiments on one of our great inland lakes,
the Navy Department also investigated other ideas relating to the
self-protection of craft at sea. Among these was a device by which a