The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1888-11-03
Wonderful Maxim Gun,

VIM. X. Hamilton in Century for October.
But great as IS our admiration foi
the Gardner and Calling guns, it must
give way before the establishment and
wonder excited by another American
invention but very recently perfected.
1t is the Maxim automatic machine gun,
invented in 1888, but only within year
past brought to a state of wonderful and
ingenious perfection. 1t is with q feel
ing almost akin to shame that we STATE
that this gun is made in England
although the inventor is Amerl-
can. 1t is, as Its lame indicat' S,
an automatic machine gun and
only requires the pressure of the
finger on the trigger to explode the first
cartridge, and the gun, then left alone,
will load and fire itself as long az
cartridges are fed to it. The gun proper
consists ofan ordinary gun barrel, two
thirds of which are surrounded by a
casing of metal in which water is auto
matically injected by each discharge OF
the barrel. By means of this casing, or
waterjacket, it is impossible TO over
heat the gun by firing.
The remaining third is surrounded by
steel case of rectangular shape, inside
of which is the mechanism for operat-
ing the gun. This mechanism consists
of handspring, lumber, sears and fir
ing pin, similar to those used in the old
fashioned pistol. In addition is the
lever, which, when the gun is fired, is
thrown into action by the recoil. The
arrangement is at once set in motion
the empty shell with drawn, a new cart
ridge inserted, the breech closed, cart
ridge fired, and a certain quantity of wa
ter admitted into the water jacket. The
cartridges are placed in pockets on a
belt. Each belt contains 1873 Of these
pockets, and two or more belts may be
Joined together. Tie end of the belt is
introduced in the breech casing, and
the finger pressed on the trigger to fire
the first cartridge, after which the gun
may be left alone, and the automatic
action, set in motion by the ..recOil, fires
the rest. AS the recoil is but three
quarters of an inch, some id may be
had of the wonderful ingenuity of
the gun bv considering that it w ii
fire the 666 cartridges of the double
belt in a little over a minute or
at the rate of ten second; in other
words, it requires but one-tenth Of a
second to load the gun, fire a cartridge,
throw out the empty shell, and put in a
full one Again, the recoil of the gun
does another work. Over the casing is
q small tank of water, and at each dis
charge of the gun a small quantity of
cool water is injected from the cistern
into the water jacket, and after the heat
of the gun has risen. sufficiently, the
water escapes in the form of steam from
two little apertures at the front end of the
jacket. The cartridge contains from 20 to
80 grains of powder, and the heat
evolved IN the discharge of one cart
ridge Is sufficient to raise the tempera-
ture of the water at the rate of u de-
grees Fahrenheit per pound. And as
much heat is required to melt four
pounds of iron as is necessary to evap-
crate five pounds of water. 1t can be
seen from this what an effectual absorb
ent of heat is the water jacket, and, in
fact, ii requires the discharge of 900
cartridges before the water is heated
sufficiently to cause steam to make Its
appearance. The rate of fire is reg
ulated by means of a quadrant gradual
ed from 200 up to 200, SO that by putting
the hand on this, the gun not only can
swing from side to side, and thus traverse
with its fire wide arc, but also can
throw out such fire as is wished. The
field piece is > feet high, leet inches
long from muZzle to rear of breech, and
weighs but 90 pounds, and its carriage
about loo pounds. The maximum rate
of firing is about 800 shots per minute,
but it has fired continuously 5000 shots,
and so accurately that it is said its in
ventor, by putting his hand on the
traversing lever, has written bis name
on target board 400 Yards from tue
muZZle. in the dark