The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1855-06-06
DAILY JOU r NAL.
Pom the Crimean Correspondence of the Lond Times
The ways of u BOmbsheII.

Pom the crmean Correspondence of the Lond. Times
The ways of "a BOmbsheII.
A column ofwhite smoke rushing up into
the air expands into concentric rings-then
follows the heavy dull report, like the beat of
some giant drum, and then comes the shrill
scream of the she'll as it describes its fatal
curve and descends with prodigious velocity,
increasing rapidly in every instant, TIL it
explodes with the peculiar noise or "blast,"
just as it reaches the ground At least it
ought to do so-but to-day | watched the
shells one after another, and only two out of
the three burst properly, though the range
and flight was beautifully accurate. The
Russian fusees are bad but their artillery
men are not to be excelled when their prac-
tice is undisturbed. 1t was interesting
just as the man of pleasure in LucretiuS liked
to see the sea rage when he was not on board
ship-to look at the she'll dropping, and to
see our active little Allies scampering away
to their cover, and adjusting themselves TO
the closest possible connection with mother
earth, until the hurting masses had gone by
them. Any man with moderate confidence
and experience may despise round shot at
long ranges, if he only sees the guns from
which they come discharged. Well, we
won't say despIse exactly, but at all events
"evade."
But SHELLS diabolical invention, which
no enc can regard as it approaches without a
certain degree of msgving that triangular
piece of jagged iron may be whizzed through
his internal enconomy at the shortest possi-
BILE notice afterward. If it is sent from a
gun it fixes and roars through the air, and
sends its fragments before it, the cone of dis
Persion, which in the neat phrase used by
the learned militant to imply the direction of
the bits of shell Cor its contents, when it is
filled with bullets, &C., being in the direc-
ton the shell has taken from the gun, and
the fragments being propelled with portion
OF the velocity of the shell at the moment of
explosion. II it be discharged from mortar
it whistles gently and decateIy, giving
squeak and roar now and then as it arises
to its greatest elevation, and then rushing
downward with shriller whistle, toward the
point its fragments are projected all around
rsdially, and are propelled merely by the
force of the busrting charge. A man behind
a bomb, or at the side of it, is Just as likely
to be hit as man before it when it bursts in
that way; whereas the pieces from she'll
from gun in nearly every instance fly for
ward, SO that person behind it or outside
the limits of the cone Of dispersion is safe
Unless the shell or bomb bursts in front of
body of men, in the air, very considerable
degree of safety may be attained by the men
throwing themselves fiat on the ground, inso-
much as the pieces of she'll which bursts
,on the earth fly upward from the point where
they encounter the maximum of resistance.
: OF course, if a bomb burst over man on
the ground, or if she'll explode in the air in
front of man, there is no great safety
gained by his throwing himself down beyond
the consequent reduction of the amount of
vertical exposure. This little depression is
all. GpTOpoS of the conduct OF our A lies
WHICH I have just mentioned and is made in
order to explain the rationale of their pro-
tceedings.o 1t is rather an unpleasant re-
Election whenever one is discussing the range
of a, missile, and is perhaps exclaiming.-
"These's splendid shot, that it may have
carried misery and sorrow into some happy
househould. The smoke clears away-she
men get up-they gather round one that
moves not, or who is racked with mortal
agony-they bear him away-a mere black
speck--and few shovelsful of mud mark
for little time the resting place of the poor
soldier, whose wife, or mother, or children,
or sisters, are left destitute of all solace save
memory and the sympathy of their country.
One such little speck watched to- day, and
saw quietly deposited on the ground inside a
trench. Who will let the inmates of that
desoate cottage in Picardy or Gascony, or
Anjou know of their bereavement! How
ever there goes another shell, and it does
nothing but knock up u cloud of snow and
dust.