Virginia Military Institute - Bomb Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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THE BOMB. IT of the first inter-continental telegraph line in the world. This instru- ment verifiecl the prophecy of the great Maury, that there was a sub- marine plateau between America and Europe, suitable, by its freedom from sea-disturbance, for the location of a cable for telegraphic use. Brooke was complimented by Maury in government publications of the day, and received distinguished consideration from scientific men of England, on the Continent and in Japan. Brooke ' s adventures would read like romances of Jules ' erne. Men now living were, as boys, as much absorbed at the recital of his adventures, shortly after they occurred, as were the traditional listeners to the Arabian Nights ' entertainments of oriental fame. Captain Brooke was the author of improvements in guns, shot, shell and munitions of war at the Tredegar Works in Richmond. His gun and his steel-pointed shot were highly thought of by military and naval authorities in the fiery days of actual use in real war. S. R. Mallory, secretary of the Confederate States Navy, thus v.rites of him in 1867, from Pensacola : The extraordinary efifects of the Virginia ' s (Merrimac ' s) battery, in her combat in Hampton Roads, were in a great measure due to the Brooke gun, etc, etc. Franklin Buchanan, admiral and commander of the Merrimac, wounded in the first day ' s fight of that vessel, thus writes from Fair View, near Easton, Maryland, in January, 1867 : Captain Brooke, the inventor of the Brooke ' gun, is an officer of high scientific attainments, combined with great practical skill and is much respected and esteemed. As chief of ordnance and hydro- graphy, he was constantly consulted by the Secretary of the Navy and other high officials on very important naval matters and inventions. To him we were indebted for iron-clad vessels — the ' irginia (Merri- mac) was his suggestion. He is the inventor of the admirable deep- jea sounding apparatus, used in sounding the track for the Atlantic cable, for which he was complimented, etc., etc. Near the close of the war, Brooke served with the naval brigade on the march from Richmond, under the command of General G. W. C. Lee, afterwards professor of engineering at the Mrginia Military

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10 THE BOMB. granted by the Confederate States a a time when all cognizant of the facts were alive and competent to testify. In 1863, as chief of ordnance and hydrography of Confederate States, he proposed that a thirteen-inch Blakely should be fired with the powder charge placed wholly in front of the chamber in order to diminish the initial tension of the gases, a sister gun having burst at the first discharge. This was done successfully with heavy charges, overthrowing the then universal belief that a considerable space unoc- cupied by powder would cause a gun to burst. A series of experi- ments by direction of the chief of ordnance in the army of the Confede- rate States was subsequently made, which fully confirmed the theory thus advanced, and the emplo} ' ment of an air space is now, as is well known, general. Brooke ' s career in the United States Navy was brilliant for a young man. Even as a midshipman he was noted among his fellows for his physical strength, activity and skill in athletic sports. He was a skilful oarsman, a good rifle- and pistol-shot, and a noted swimmer. Among the Americans, he was one of the few who seemed at all equal to the Sandwich Islanders in their feats of diving and swimming near their island home. Besides his inventive genius, he had a mechanical turn of a high order. There used to be in the house now occupied by our accom- plished Commandant of Cadets, Colonel Price, a model in wood of a schooner in which was reproduced every timber, block, spar, mast, rope, pulley or piece of tackle in a real schooner. Even the planks in the deck were imitated and the sails made of his wife ' s best linen hand- kerchief were not lacking — all made by Captain Brooke, to please a lad who had never been out o ' sight of land. The lines of this miniature vessel were so fine that she easily beat all her tiny competi- tors in a trial race on a pond not far from the site of the old ' irginia Military Institute. As a passed-midshipman he early became distinguished by his deep-sea sounding apparatus which revolutionized communication between Europe and America. By this was made possible the laying

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12 • THE BOMB. Institute (dividing the department then under General Thomas H. WilHamson), and still later the accomplished president of Washington and Lee University. After the surrender, Brooke was cut off, as so many naval officers were, from following his profession. He was appointed professor of pliysics at the Virginia Military Institute in 1866, becoming a colleague of his old-time friend and admirer. Commodore Matthew F. Maury, of world-wide fame. Men then fresh from experience of actual war held a place in the respect and affection of the people hardly appre- ciated by the generation that has sprung up since that time. The gentlemen who have been members of the Faculty of the Virginia Military Institute, however brilliant, stand under the shadow of a great name. Stonewall Jackson ' s shade o ' ertops them all, but none are so widely known in America, Europe and far-off Asia as Matthew F. Maury the Pathfinder of the Seas and that queer, slow- moving, low-voiced old genius atavis cditc rcgibits. whom all respect and some love, Old Mike Brooke — Calva Veritas.