soumpins ane Wi Foals “io High-frequency ssund waves, heunsing back dren vsdarwater objects, foes pattarss on chip conr ncopes. The RADAR OF THE DEEP By JAMES L, H, PECK ECRET eyes and cars installed in the bot- ‘toma of ships to thwart submarines now are helping to protect seafarers from perils af navigation, including the hundreds at ‘thousanis of imimis still strewn around the work], Bonar (submarine detection and ranging} devices are a mew means of both exploring and exploiting the seven tenthn of tht earth's surface that les beneath the octans. They ean be used pot anly by mar- jners, to avold reefs, wrecks, and mines, but also by Ashermen apd naturallata, to bear the granting. purring, crosking, sant drumming of fh, Bonar includen Ustening gear, ranging equipment, and sounding acperatue, In this Davy Jones's radar,” high-frequency sound waves are used instead of radio waves. But electronics and magnetism have been linked with sonic science to detect and locate ob- jects below the sea more swiftly and cer- ae tainly. Underwater menaces hnve been lo cated TIGR aWny, and tarpedces racing at 40 knots or faster toward a skip have heen detected and traced in time for the vemel to dodge them. A metallic football on & retractable rod below a hip, of m bulge in tts bottom, sut- fives ag 4 sonar “antenna.” On most ships, the other equipment ia housed in a small cabin called the sonar hut, occupied during, khe war by men whoee lips were sealed for the sake of security. In a submarine, dupli- cate inatrumenta may be placed in the com. fing tower and forward torpedo roam, and sound-wave projectors may he located om top as well na below the hull, Even if a lnndiubber could see the projectors, he would not be Ikely to guean how noutely they hear apd interpret echoes in the deptha, ‘The man-made waven emitted and re- ceived by these new “feelers” figured in the luattles of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but sooar's work ia far from done. ‘The ritish POPULAR sCrENcR,UMD TRAVELS THROUG CUT Me MILE PRE BEC DISTANCE sono 2200000) i Water tranumits sound nearly five Hees os Hast ot ait. IB is on idtal mediam for seund-datection work, TRANSMITTING RECENW ING TRANSMITTING nH) |) | MAGNETIC OSCILLATORS, RECE WING First undarwater sore rasan id Growny’s trumpet, TRANSMITTING RECEIVING IMPROVED OSCILLATOR I SSCLLATOR MABACT Impraved mike hed phesetype receiver is water, ..SONAR Navy glue beta 260,000 mines during te war; dur submarines, minelayers, and B-20'8 turned Asia's ports into death trape; and the Japanese set mines adrift in ocean eur rents sweeping toward Amerien. Sonar will leasen the danger in peacotiene from these and other menaces, ‘The variety of sonar devices already im tne in stnrtling, and more are being de- ‘veloped. Engineers ure werking ow on sinnil, Inexpensive equipment fur pleasure boats—and on fish detectors to save the time of profeasional flabermen. Production af a @-pound electronic depth yeearder fur pracetine use Ee planned bn- madiately by the Martie of the Bendix Aviation Corp, This instrument oom- slate of o signol sender, am echo ampildier, and a recording meebaninm that draws an irregular purple ine on a roll of scaled BAper ag the skip anila over te mduntains canyons below the waves. Thia makes it ag easy for a mariner to get the lay of the NOVEMBER, 155 Fessen: n sicitater ured dioptragms, magne TRANSMITTING RECEWING MICROPHONE IN TANK, RETRACTABLE PROJECTOR FIMED PROJECTOR Straamiland heulnge protect medeen prejectsrs cetan'a Moor Ag Ht is for mim to ginnee at the headlines of a newspaper. He mescly looks ints a wiedow to aoe the coutour af the bottom of tha ae, Tf the ship pases aver a wreck, the bine of the graph becomes heavier: if a schook of fish swims below the ship, my Hmes on the groph'reveal thelr presence. The opera- tor of thls particular apparatus, moreover, needs no special training to use it to search for buried Treamure, nuvignte through fog hy following hydrographic charts, or ta locate fishing banks and schools af fish, BaSteel bar magnetined tating curent vibrate y altar: rapidly: When Marl ‘Twain wos a Missiealpy steamboat pilot, the bontmen took soundings by hand snd called out “Mark Twain” when the water was two fathoms deep, This mew sonar device does such work faster, more mecurately, and in deeper water than any man could do it, When mensuring the depth ig fathona, 4% soundings a minute are takes, which meant that a ship doing 10 keota geta a reading every 21 feet along Its courae, When the depth in being measured in feet, 258 snumdings are taken a minute, or every 3th feet by a veasel doing 10 knots, ‘This will facilitate the commercial use of the great rivers of Africa, South America, and other continests, as well os make navigation of the high seas afer, Develop era of the new supersonic depth recorder contend thot it can be used with hydro- Btaphic charts in fog ond darkness with Tore confidence than a magnetic compass, Muct of the romance may vanish from Ashing, bowever, for sonar will show mew- ‘Ase late lane soved lent magni Some crystale change in rine whan ancited by electricity. Sar-filled balloes mak watch ovdible oro! ) ROCHELLE SALT J Sev sta ae Rachalle-ralt crystale ore used inmmout aanar ranging equipmest, comers the location of fishing banks whi hove thos far been the closely guarded secrets of vid-time fshing-boat captains. Devices which cost legs than 4 Bat are being made for commercial fishermen now, They are expected to pay for themselves, pat obly hy helping to Ioente fish, bat also by dis closing the rocks and wrecks on which nets coating up to $3,500 are often tom. Experienced ichthyologists, tuning in oo the ccavernstions of fish, now can tell what varieties of fish are making the noises, But visual depth recorders, #0 senaitive that they indlente the presence of fish and their favorite haunts, will peabably sullce for commercial fshermen's purposes. Fishin hy the seat of ane’s pants may soon be as discredited a flying that way. Like rodur, sonar grew out of a long serlea of Inventions. Sound travels faster and farther through water thats through alr, anil devices to pick up the snunds of aul marines were invented before World War 1. 86 GAS-FILLED POPULAR 8ClENCEoer veperecnie depth RECORDER CHART is line thot troces the aval an tha gemon finer, This surted with a mal of the hill ced valley: actual record of the The frst underwater cara peragms stretched across openings, like olt-fashioned speaking trumpets. Under- ter bell buoys ond oscillators were de- veloped as warning and communication de- vieca. Recelvers were improved and placed in tanks within ships to reduce undesirable Toles. Ordinary sounds gave way to supersonic vibrations, beyond the range of the buman ear, and sonar communication methods were ap impraved during this wat that ships could converse by annar when it would hare been dangerous to ope radio, hal thin dis- NOVEAUER, 1958 for peacetime wm, Whea engloyed to acbeole of fick, the portable “irsradu ‘con be baneiered easily from boct te bool, voyoge from Hock blond, off the top of tong Ie land, te Flushi Tea prominent dip is the: Flom Gero deep deprenion Long Island Sound, Whether sonar is being used for signal ing, oF to listen for objects beneath tne wa» ter, of to detect them by emitting waves which bounes back and are timed Ike radar waves, the signals can be made either au- dible or visible. When desired, sonar can be met to ring a buzzer or Aush a light wher a ship approaches shalkrw wa One aonar device has a sonic lens to niag- nify the sounds or echota detected, Any change in the composition or temperature of a medium conducting sound changes the velocity of the (Coutiiwed on page £§0) avge hg" amRE v dect wot pall «ss Se tight, the jaw doer not tire... .Becaure sock CUSTOM. BILT PIPE ix © onion of lighter stummels ond bigger bowls . ‘Ne breeking-in. cither...Cured for your Immediate pleasure... And etyled by artiste who ure ‘their imagination ax well os ‘thelr honda «Mo ree alike, CUSTOMBILT Pipe dllicatean ps soliesion tuoladey cuits raage of stpler at 85, 87,50,85- 80, £15, S72 50 and fhe dll packaged im Banciome gift bexee, Quip at Beeter Saran. deihe Hdnos Mate, ty 8835 Fb An.§7. 2 Batibston ola ef Sparunce Fee Wahen, (Foo nals Fees ere Speetoman Teenies tar 244 Radar of the Deep (Continued from page £7) wound, Tn the achoolrocmn, a balloon fall of gas is sometimes uned to demonstrate Unis, ‘A wateh held against the ballom can be heard ticking far away. Th sonar equipment, a chamber filed with carbon diaxide gas, or a verscl full of special olf having the right acoustic properties, may be used to intennity the sounds picked ‘Use of sonar was limited for a time by troubles resulting from changes in the tem- perature aod density of sen water. Warm find cold layers, such aa yeu have enceun- tered when swimminyt. refract sound waves. Submarines could bide im sonar “blind spota,” But new, allowance for the deflec- toms can be made when the temperature gradient is known. A device called a buthy- TMermograph is used to obtain this infor mation. It is a combination thermometer and depth indicator, One type of bathy- thermograph is weed for clase-to-the-aurfane recordings and another far deep readings, where much grenter pressure i encountered. Although the employment of bigh-fre- quency sounds is a recent development. sid much research remains to be done, the idem 15 0M, Super-sounds may be produced by either maguetostriction oF “plespeleetriel- ty" and uae baa been made of bath methods. Magnetostriction transmitters are based on the discovery that certain magnetic m= terinis are bent rapidly back and forth when fngnotized by alternating-carrent electric- ity, A sieel bar, for example, can be made to vibrate af such speed that tt will produce AiMsnst Pure tones; the BOLE WAVES emitted Mn sntne sunar devines are created in thinway, Pierre Curie (hater to win fame na a tis: coverer of radium) discovered plezoelectric- ity in 1880, when be found thnt certain mineral crystals change in thickness and length when excited by electrical currents. Conversely, when pleces of crystal are vi brated by mechanical means, charges of slatie electricity are develuped os their sur Taces. Theve crystals have a certain grain, or electrical axis, When they ore properly cut into disks of rods, they vibrate, or oacil- late, uniformly. Hence, erystala can be umd “valves to stabilize radio and mdar- tuning frequenctes, Quartz is used in mast electronle applleations, while Rochelle salt is employed In mast sonar ranging equip- rent, Sound waver set up by magnetostriction or pleuelectricity con be dizected Uke rays from ao searchlight amd projected through ‘the cold, dark waters of the sea for miles, {Continued om page 280) POPULAR sClENCE.ij RR se | _WEAREVER The Hey te Pan Duality TELESCOPE PRECISION The 1943 Wearever Zenith is fashioned with uster precision . . , the uncompromising seandardy of Precisine applied eo the making of a fine telescope, ‘Telescope Precisicm! [tevalue isceflected in the skillful "C.Plow” feed, t Ica gold point, the balince af raby-ropped Wearever WW: Refill Leads Radar of the Deep fGen wwed Frome gage B46) Some of the sonar ranging devices weed by the Navy ta detect targets will reveal the presince of certain objects at distances ireater than six miles. ‘The use of supersonic rather than sonic vihrathins makes tt possible to contral the direction smd concentration of the waves emitted with much grester accuracy, and to eliminate side echoes and extraneous noises auch aa those from waves and other ships which might mislead the annar opera- tors. ‘The new eyes ani enrs of ships, more~ aver, do tholr jobs as silently as those of people. Nary rangers have cathode-ray EDIE (bearing direction indieator) scopes which tell the operator the direction of the object detected. .Aatber indicator called the MTE: (muintenance of true bearing) may be at- ached ta Doth the projector and the ships gyro compass, Whar this “target Iuolier” ix engaged. it keeps the sonar ranging pro- joctoe trained oo the target regardless of tbe ship's maneuvers. Another interesting device that can be hooked to the ranging sct Ia the AP (at~ tack plotter). Tt has a special elreular scope, simlinr to one type of radar scope, which provides a running account of 9 whole Vattle that may be rging mound o ship beneath the surface, Tk was particu larly valuable against Nazi walf packs an Jap suicide orstt. Sonar has even beds combined with radar to produce rabots called sno buoys, These ‘wore planted in harbors, channels, and other waters to wateh for submarines, Each buoy consisted of a small, floating radar beacon with an underwater microphone. When the vibrations of a submarine’s propeller were benrd by this microphone, the radar trans mitter was atorted. Ench buoy was set 90 ns to emit a distinctive align. Planes and destroyers can move so moch faster than & submarine that it often was possible to re- spond to these cries of alarm from sono Tuoys and drop depth charges before the submarine got away. One time off Soatland, the sonar story tellers insist, m lighthouse equipped with underanter listening devices located a stil merged U-boat asi ealled up forces ta aur round It, Divers went down to tap on the mide and tell the occupants in Morse code that they could either come up and sure onder of be depth-bombed, The submarine crew tapped back that they'd come right up—and did, POPULAR SCIENCE