Mines of the great electroplating in Sevastopol

Ending. Start at No. 487
In 1847, large demonstration tests of underwater mines were conducted in the area between Kronstadt and Oranienbaum in the presence of Emperor Nicholas I and all senior military officials. First demonstrated the action of uncharged mines connected to a galvanic battery installed on the shore and, in turn, connected to a telegraph. When the propeller boat collided with the mines, the fuse was triggered, the galvanic circuit closed and a bell rang on the telegraph unit. Then experiments were conducted with combat mines that had a powder charge, but with an open circuit. It was necessary to show that their vessels can pass over mines without endangering. Finally, the most critical part of the tests was carried out. The chain connecting the battery with the mine mines closed, the ship, passing over the mine, touched it - the fuse worked, an explosion occurred.
The minefields developed by Jacobi played an important role in the Crimean War, which began in 1853. According to the system, which he also created, these barriers were installed in the mouths of the rivers Bug, Dniester, Danube, Dnieper and in the Kerch Liman. The same, only the more powerful minefield system developed by Jacobi, did not allow the combined Anglo-French squadron to land troops in Kronstadt. This system consisted of up to 2000 mines, controlled by wire, which was a completely new word in the mine explosive business of that time. Thanks to the work of Jacobi, Russia became an advanced power in the field of military electrical engineering of the mid-nineteenth century.
Jacobi worried about the fate of Sevastopol. He did everything to help the besieged city. He ensured that the military authorities sent everything necessary for mining the Sevastopol raid: the best hunting powder, mines, special conductors, instruments, galvanic batteries and fuses. However, Prince A. S. Menshikov, who commanded the defense, refused to mine the raid. In February 1853, Menshikov was removed from command, but time was lost, the Jacobi mines did not have time to protect the city.
A year before his death, Jacobi wrote in his autobiography: “My work was directed in the sense of applying the power of galvanism to military affairs. The beginning of my work on this subject coincides with the beginning of 1840 of the year. Consequently, Russia drew attention to this currently significant branch of military production almost thirty years earlier than other states, which now enjoy the fruits of the successes and improvements made in this regard.
The mines (torpedo) I invented and improved are hardly essentially inferior to the newest torpedoes of other states, despite the strenuous efforts made in these countries to improve the above-mentioned projectile, which Russia first owned long before such a means of military defense became known abroad. Being used for the first time in the war during the defense of Kronstadt, the Russian torpedoes of my design represented, as we know, a serious obstacle to the attack from the Anglo-French fleet. ”
The Northern Bee newspaper enthusiastically informed the readers: “In the Middle Ages, fanatics would have burned Mr. Jacobi, and poets and storytellers would have invented a legend about him like Faust. In our time, we will not burn him, but we will warm with a feeling of gratitude for his useful works and, instead of a legend, we will tell the truth, namely that Mr. Jacobi, beyond scholarship, is an excellent person in all respects, because there is no pedantry in him, but there is a true, ardent passion to science and an equally ardent desire to be helpful and hospitable and grateful to Russia ... ”
For his extraordinary work, Boris S. Jacobi was elected a member of the Polytechnic Society in Leipzig, the British Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts, the Scottish Society of Arts, the Imperial Free Economic Society, the Physical Society in Frankfurt, the Corinth Palatine Society for Formation and Technology, the Royal Danish Society of Northern Antiquities , The Russian Geographical Society, the Dutch Society of Sciences in Gaarlem. In addition, he was a correspondent for the Neapolitan Academy of Sciences, the royal Lombardo-Venetian Institute in Milan, the Roman Academy, was elected an honorary member of Kharkov University and received a diploma from Prague University as a Doctor of Liberal Arts and Philosophy. The works of Jacobi were awarded by the Russians (St. Anne) and foreign (Prussian Red Eagle, Danish Daneborg, French Legion of Honor and Mexican Guadalupe Mother of God) orders. He died in Petersburg on the night of February 27 1874.
One sad, but very significant detail: shortly before his death, in anticipation of it, Boris Semenovich appealed to Emperor Alexander the Third to help financially his family. Despite the universal recognition of the high value of his discoveries and the usefulness of the inventions made by Jacobi, he left the family with virtually no means of livelihood. This happened because he often invested personal money in his workings. And entrepreneurs, who should have returned them a hundredfold, did not hurry to do it.
But besides that, the salary of the great scientist and designer was small: he worked for private entrepreneurs, and not for the state. Private traders priceless his works paid very generously. And what about the state? The fact is that Boris Semenovich Jacobi could not enter the civil service: in his documents in the column "religion" was indicated "Jew." It was a stigma, because the Jews could not be accepted for civil service even by collegiate registrars - the last rank in the Table of Ranks.
Yes, Boris Semenovich Jacobi, his spouse and children were Jews. He, of course, did not wear Paces, Lapserdak and other accessories, testifying to Judaism. He was also a Jew of German origin, but this did not make much difference in the eyes of the Petersburg world, and most importantly, of the higher authorities, on which the well-being of the family of the brilliant physicist depended.