Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

Thursday, Lieutenant Bell, of the artillery, tried another experiment on the Queen's battery, Portsmouth, with a piece of ordnance, which fully answered every expectation formed of it, and will be of great public utility. In case a ship is stranded on rocks, &c. some distance from the shore, to throw a rope, and the sea running too high for people to get off to their assistance, then they are to have an iron ball with a ring bolt, in which is fastened a line of sufficient length to reach the shore, and being fired from a carronade in an oblique direction, with a quantity of powder proportioned to the distance it is meant to fall; the shot of course buries itself in the earth, leaving an end of the line on board, by the help of which the crew, with the life raft, can not only save their lives, but carry other ropes on shore, or valuable parts of the cargo. As the ball buries itself in an oblique direction, and will be pulled horizontally by the people getting on shore, it will of course bear a very great weight before it can be disengaged from the earth. Besides the principal officers there were a great number of people on the ramparts to view so curious an invention.