The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-08-01 00:00:00

IRISH INDUSTRIES.

The fishing industry on the coast of Connemara
formed thb subject of evidence given before the Select
Committee of the Rouse of Commons, presided over
by Sir Eardley Wilmot. The Rev. Father Flaherty,
parish priest of Carnagh, county Galway, stated that
about 3000 men were employed in the fishing. They
were badly supplied with boats and gear, and the
market at Galway, which was the nearest one avail-
able, was so difficult to reach that the men were on
some occasions away for weeks. The fishermen should
be enabled to go 40 or 50 miles out to sea in boats of
at least 30 tons. Mr. Brady, inspector of fisheries,
had done much good to the fishermen, and they had
got a good many 1 ans ; but what they got was not
sufficient. The boat builders were men of small
capital, and it was necessary to pay them by instal-
ments as the work proceeded. The State, he sub-
mitted, should make railway communication for
Connemara as they did for India. The people of
Connemara made from the wool of their own sheep
nearly all the flannel that they wore. They were a
very healthy people and consumption was almost
unknown. Most of them spoke Irish; but some
spoke Irish and English. There were fairly good
schools in the district and the children went freely
to them. Banking evidence was given by Mr. Nevill
Stock and Mr. Robert Ewen, woollen manufacturer,
Glasgow, who was of opinion that Sir R. Peel's Bank
Act, of 1844, had done harm to Irish industry by
restricting the note issue. Mr. James Canning, flax
merchant, handed in a paper on
.the flax industry.
The committee adjourned sine die, after cordially
acknowledging the great value of the services
rendered by Sir Eardley Wilmot, the chairman.

Another ice company is spoken of. There ought
not surely to be much difficulty in floating ice.—
Fids.
Major General R. Gipps, C.B. (command;ng the
Home District), made his annual in 3pection of the 2nd
Battalion Coldstream Guards at Wellington Barracks,
St. James's Park, London, on Saturday. The battalion
was under the command of Colonel G. J. Wigram, who
commanded it in the Egyptian campaign of 1882, and
presented a smart appearance, nfost of the men wearing
the medals for the campaign.
Intelligence on Saturday from Ballymena states that
Miss Sarah Strahan, a young lady of seventeen, who
had returned home from a Belfast boarding-school for
her holidays, has died from frightful burns sustained
by her dress catching fire when standing near the
parlour grate. The unfortunate young lady had carried
oil the chief prizes at the school.
On Saturday morning the steamer St. Ronald, of
Aberdeen, was in collision in Aberdeen Bay with the
fithing boat Mizpah, 2023. The boat was out
tg
the-wafer'soge. and immcdiatelv sank. The crew were
rescued.

MILITARY WEAPONS and EQUIPMENT
at the INVENTIONS EXHIBITION.

-- -
It is in some degree perhaps significant of the
temper of the nation that a group of inventions which
in the schedule of exhibits prepared last year was
placed twenty-fifth in order has been put in the most
prominent position, and is, indeed, the first to attract
the attention of the visitor. To the large and admir-
ably asranged collection of military weapons and
equipment, explosives, &c., contributed by the War
Department reference has already been made; but,
beyond the long bright steel gun and the models of
shells and charges of powder from Woolwich, which
must bring home to the mind of the civilian tax-
payer very forcibly the costly character of
modern warfare, there are several stands filled
with weapons about which the public have lately
heard and read much. Next to the exhibits from the
Royal Gun Factory are some Armstrong guns sent
from the Elswick Works to show what has been
done of late in the improvement of mountain artillery.
The smallest of the guns exhibited is a 7-pounder
jointed gun, which with its carriage and ammunition
has been specially constructed to be carried on mules.
The gun, which is of steel and rifled, weighs 400111,
is sft. 10in, long, and has a calibre of Din. With a
charge of I,llb. of powder it throws shrapnel, common
shell, or case shot with an effective range of 4000
yards. In order to render it more easily portable,
the weight being in excess of a mule load, the gun is
made in two portions of equal weight, the trunnion
joint ser ring to connect the muzzle pieee with the
breech half when the parts are screwed together.
Six mules are required to carry the gun and its
appurtenances. Another weapon, designed to be
borne by elephants, is a steel rifled breech-load-
ing howitzer, 51t. 7in. in length, weighing '
10531 b., with a bore of 4.724 in., and throwing a 401 b.
shell or case shot. The carriage can be packed on a
second elephant, and others would, of course, be
needed to carry ammunition. For siege operations
th,re is 'Mown a Gin, heavy steel howitzer, not quite
so long (sft. Skin.), but weighing 24041 b. It is also
breech-loading, and throws an 801 b. shell. On the
same platform is a 10-barrel Gatling gun which is
capable of firing 40 bullets in one second, and which
can be elevated or depressed, or directed right or left
at the will of the gunner firing it, in one continuous
operation. Provision is also made on the carriage for
the man firing to keep his place, so that firing need
not cease while the gun is being drawn within a
square of infantry in face of a charge of the enemy.
Under appropriate national trophies of battle-axes,
spears, and iron shields, decorated after old Nerse
designs by Von Beskow, of Stockholm, is ranged a
battery of Nordenfeldt guns, with specimens of the
pointed steel shot and shell used in them. Among
the number may be seen one of the 0-pounder 21 in.
quick-firing guns carried on our warships. In trials
over 30 shots a minute have been fired with this gun,
and at a range of 600 yards a three-inch solid steel
plate has been penetrated by its shot. Others are a
four-barelled gun, such as that which was mounted in
a railway truck and employed with good effect by
Captain Fisher in Egypt; a two-barrelled gun for use
in torpedo boats and in the tops on our ironclads ;
and a single-barrel Martini-Henry for cavalry,
weighing 131 b., with which 180 rounds a minute have
been fired. It is not, however, only among the des-
tructive inventions that Mr. Nordenfeldt's ingenuity
is shown. As an addition to the benefits he has
conferred upon mankind in this respect, he
presents in one of the foreign courts a
considerable variety of castings of what appears
to be a form of exceedingly mild steel
called " Mitis " wrought iron. The process by
which this very pliable and sufficiently ductile
material is obtained from wrought iron scrap was
worked out by experiments conducted by Messrs.
Faustman, Oestberg, and Nordenfelt, who availed
themselves of the experience of Mr. Ludwig Nobel
and Mr. Wittenstroem. When Swedish wrought iron
scrap was used, it was found that the castings had
about 20 per cent. higher tensile strength than the
wrought iron used, the tensile strength being 24 tons
per square inch and upwards. Elongation, however,
was slightly (from five to ten per cent.) less than
that of the raw material. The inventors' view is
that they make an exceedingly mild steel by melting
the wrought iron almost free from carbon, instead of
making mild steel by decarbonising pig iron, which
contains about three per cent. of carbon. The great
heat they require in the operation is obtained by
burning petroleum residuum or naphtha, which, it is
said, is obtainable from the United States and from
the Trans-Caucasian oil-fields in Baku in unlimited
quantities, and can be used without any danger.
Returning from this excursion to the court in the
East Central galleries allotted to various foreign
countries, the visitor may continuo his examination of
guns of which some have been adopted in the Royal
Navy after trials of which the results have been pub-
lished from time to time. Back to back with
the machine guns above mentioned are the
Hotchkiss and the Maxim guns. Messrs. Hotchkiss
and Co. exhibit a five-barrelled revolving cannon pro-
jectiles of 41b. in weight. The gun, ift. long over all,
and weighing 22001 b., consists of five barrels of Whit-
worth compressed steel set round a central steel shaft.
The calibre is 200 m. Besides some other revolving
cannon of different sizes, there is a rapid-firing single-
barrel gun specially made for use on torpedo boats
and weighing altogether about 731 b. It has a mean
diameter of bore of P4B in., and with a projectile
weighing a little over a pound, service and steel shell,
at 500 yards, it has penetrated 0-Gin. of steel plating.
In the next stand is another famous quick-firing
machine gun, that of the Maxim Gun Company. The
peculiar feature of this ingenious invention is that the
firing goes on automatically when once the first shot
has been fired, the gunner having only to supply
fresh belts of cartridges and to aim the gun. The
cartridges are placed side by side between two
tapes very much as in the bandoliet which has been
supplied to some of our troops in recent expeditions.
By turning a hand crank to and fro, seven times so
many cartridges are drawn from the belt as it passes
the breech, one cartridge being thus placed in the
barrel and the other six in the magazine. The gun
is now ready for use and when the trigger is pulled,
the force obtained by the recoil from the explosion of
the first cartridge is utilized to open the breech, to
withdraw the empty case and eject it from the gun,
to bring a fresh cartridge in position for loading, to
push it into the barrel, close the breech, cock the
hammer, and pull the trigger. The round of move-
ments once started goes on continuously automatically,
the barrel being kept cool by a water-jacket. The
danger of jamming from a slow cartridge hanging fire
is obviated because the gun waits for the cartridge to
explode. If, however, the cartridge is defective and
misses fire it must be removed by hand and the gun
started again by the movement of the crank handle.
Within the limits of the capability of the gun the rate
of discharge can be regulated by the gunner, the
trigger being graduated to fire from one shot to 600
per minute.
In the vicinity of these fatal engines of war are
many models and drawings of suggested improve-
ments in the methods of mounting big guns, devices
for the protection of the gunners from rifle fire,
requisites of military eauipments, trenching tools, &c.
For the scientific service there are exhibited (No.
1046) some forms of instruments devised by
Major H. Watkin, R.A., such as a position-finder
with which a submarine mine may be fired at the
moment a ship is passing over the spot, artillery and
rifle range-finders, •clinometers, chronographs for
taking the velocity of projectiles, &c.; No. 1051, the
Elcho range-finder, invented by the present Lord
Wemyss, for ascertaining the distance of troops in the
field; a prism range-finder about the size of a watch,
invented by Lieut.-Colonel Weldon, of Reading; the
Labbez telemeter, which is also a small instrument
that may be carried in the pockets, and like the latter
especially intended for the use of artilleryists, but ap-
plicable to other purposes in which distances have to
be estimated. Guns and rifles and patented forms of
ammunition are shown in great number, and consti-
tute a class specially interesting to sportsmen.