Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Sims, Winfield Scott

SIMS, Winfield Scott, inventor, b. in New York city, 6 April, 1844. He was graduated at the Newark high-school in 1861, and served during the civil war in the 37th New Jersey regiment. Subsequently he turned his attention to the invention of electric apparatus, and devised various improvements in electro-magnets. In 1872 he constructed an electric motor to be used for light work. By means of this motor, weighing forty-five pounds and battery of twenty half-gallon Bunsen cells, he was able to propel an open boat sixteen feet long, with six persons on board, at the rate of four miles an hour. Mr. Sims was the first to apply electricity for the propulsion and guidance of movable torpedoes for harbor and coast defence. His torpedo is a submarine boat, with a cylindrical hull of copper and conical ends, supplied with a screw propellor and rudder. The power is electricity generated by a dynamo-electric machine on shore or on ship-board, and by its means the torpedo is propelled, guided, and exploded. During 1879 this system was tested by Gen. Henry L. Abbot, of the U. S. engineer corps, at Willett's point, and since that time the U. S. government has purchased ten of these boats having a speed of ten to eleven and a half miles an hour. These boats carry from 400 to 450 pounds of dynamite. Mr. Sims has now in course of construction a boat, to have a speed of eighteen miles an hour, which is to carry a 250-pound charge of dynamite.