furnished the motive power.

Each of these tubes could exert a force sufficient
to move an ordinary train of passenger cars one mile,
and this power could be exerted instantaneously, so
that the difference in time in the starting of a train
at one end of the mile and its arrival at the other
would not be appreciable. The difference in
concussionary force between a train moving at the rate
of a mile in two minutes, or even one minute, and
another train which moves a mile in an instant, can
easily be imagined.

In these bombs, those tubes which might direct
their powers downward or laterally upon the earth were
capable of instantaneously propelling every portion of
solid ground or rock to a distance of two or three
hundred yards, while the particles of objects on the
surface of the earth were instantaneously removed to a
far greater distance. The tube which propelled the
bomb was of a force graduated according to
circumstances, and it would carry a bomb to as great a
distance as accurate observation for purposes of aim
could be made. Its force was brought into action
while in the cannon by means of electricity while the
same effect was produced in the other tubes by the
concussion of the steel head against the object aimed
at.

What gave the tubes their power was the jealously