The Paravane Adventure. By L. Cope Cornford. (Hodder and Stoughton.
7s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Cope Cornford describes in this interesting book Captain Dennis Burney's invention for attacking submarines or for deflecting mines from a ship's track and bringing them to the surface. " The Paravane looks like a model of an antediluvian fish, with its corpulent body six to twelve feet long, its plane fitted across its formidable snout which is armed with steel teeth like the jaws of a shark, and ifs stiff tail fins. Or it looks as if a torpedo had been trying to fly:" For attack, a pair of paravanes are towed from the stern ; for defence, they are towed from the bows. In either case the paravane keeps at any given depth and explodes against the enemy submarine or cuts the mooring of the enemy mine. The author chides the Admiralty for not developing the invention more rapidly ; but the Admiralty wasted comparatively little time when it was convinced that Captain Burney's device would work. By the spring of 1916 a Parearane Department had been installed at the Admiralty as well as at Portsmouth. After that there was some delay in arranging for the manu- facture, but a large contract was given early in 1917. Captain Burney had no share of the profits. The towing wire was par- ticularly difficult to obtain, because ordinary wire would not stand the vibration set up by a ship towing paravanes at high speed. The paravane proved highly effective. The Admiralty has a record of fifty-three occasions on which it was used against U '-boats ; five ' U '-boats were sunk, one was probably sunk, four were probably damaged, eleven may have been hurt. As a protector of British warships, the paravane is known to have cut the moorings of fifty-six mines after diverting them from the ship's path. The merchantman type of paravane known as the " otter " has unquestionably saved many a ship from destruction by newly laid enemy mines. Mr. Cope Cornford estimates that the paravane saved the Empire ships and cargoes equivalent to a hundred millions sterling. His book is well illustrated.
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