question: Where were the buttons which activated the torpedoes? answer: In the torpedoes paragraph: In the Narrows, torpedoes were moored at distances of one hundred feet apart, and were connected with the shore by electric wires. At various points along the beach shell-proof huts were constructed, to which these wires led. In each hut was arranged a camera lucida, so that a picture of the harbor, over a limited area, was thrown upon a whitened table. In this way an observer could recognize the instant an enemy's vessel arrived over a sunken mine, and could explode the latter by simply touching a button which allowed the electric current to pass to the torpedo. In the Harbor channels the torpedoes were so arranged as to be exploded on contact of an enemy's vessel with a partially submerged buoy. The torpedo-stations on Staten and Coney Islands and the Jersey coast were provided with movable fish-torpedoes of the Ericsson and Lay types, intended to be sent out against a hostile vessel, and manoeuvred from the shore. All the steam-tugs in the Harbor were moored in Gowanus bay, and each tug was rigged with a long boom projecting from her bow, on which a torpedo, containing some fifty pounds of dynamite, was carried. 