Thorite

An invention of Dr. H. P. Tuttle of Tacoma, State of Washington. Named thorite after Thor, the Norse God of Thunder. It is more powerful, and deadly in its execution than the English lyddite shells or the melenite of the French.

Its power lies in its capacity to rend and tear a ship to pieces after the shell has penetrated through the vessel's armored side.

The danger of most high explosives like dynamite is the risk in handling them. But thorite has stood the most exacting tests at the Sandy Hook proving grounds.

The shock of going through 10 inches of armor did not explode it. Filing, rasping and putting it on a red hot stove did not explode it.

It explodes only by a fuse and a detonating cap, which can be timed to go off when the shell has buried itself in a ship's hull.

When one of these shells was exploded at Sandy Hook, 20,000 fragments of it were picked up afterward. The target at which it was fired consisted of a 12-inch armor plate, backed by ten feet of oak beams and thirty feet of sand. Of this compact pile of metal, wood and earth only a hole in the ground was left to mark where the projectile entered the target and exploded.

Thorite shells are fired with the usual charges of smokeless powder, and so can be used in any regular service gun, either military or naval.