Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-07-20
DOWN AT SANDY HOOK
Where tho Governments Big Gun
are Tested.


are Tested.
Lieutenant w. W. Gibson, U. S. A.,
who was in the city recently visiting rela-
tives, is now stationed by the war depart
ment at Providence, R. l., inspecting
government work there. He has almost
recovered from q somewhat serious &C.
cident which famed one of his feet for
several weeks. A heavy piece of metal fell
upon it while he was busily engaged in
his daily round of inspection. Lieutenant
Gibson was for several years one of the
United States officers detailed to inspect
the workings of the heavy ordinance at
Sandy Hook, New York, from which port
he was transferred this year to the Provi-
dence station. Previous to his Sandy
Hook assignment he was for many months
engaged in inspecting and testing the
government war material, made at the
Bethlehem iron works, Pennsylvania. An
interesting account of the work done at
Sandy Hook was recently given in the
Engineering Magazine, of which an ex-
tract is as follows:
At the end of a ride of an hour and a
half from New York, on the tugs Ordnance
or Engineer, lies Sandy Hook, famous in
the tales of Captain Kidd and Cooper's
story of the mysterious "Water Witch;"
spit of sand out in the Atlantic making,
with Coney Island on the other side, the
lower bay. Quiet and natural, it remains
| as when the first Dutchman sailed into tie
harbor. Here can be found the most
varied fora of the middle states, and here.
too, are all tho birds to be found which are
known as American aud which used to
| make tuneful the woods of New York,s
neighborhood, driven to this land of uiet
by innumerable sportsmen, and supported
| on the berries of the cedar and bay which
| cover the peninsula.
For years Sandy Hook has been a gov
eminent reservation, and with the excep-
ton of the lighthouse keeper and the Off
GERS and men of the proving grounds, has
| operator in his lonely tower who records
the winds and announces the incoming
vessels Yet to this lonely sand beach we
now all turn for the latest news of our
new army, as to the harbors and the ship
yards of the Hudson and the Delaware for
news of the new navy. Not for tactics
evolved and appliances manufactured, but
here are made the truly scientific expert
ments by which the art is developed, which
is every day rendering less and less useful
the heavy armour of the unwieldy ships of
modern navies.
Against the smooth-bore guns of ante
rebellion days the railroad-iron armor of
the Alabama and the iron plates of the
| monitors proved effective, but at the close
of the war methods of construction typi-
fed in the Rodman and PARROT guns had
begun new era of manufacture which has
| necessitated greater and greater thickness
till the floating forts of to-day have but
| scant buoyanoy in case of accident with
a hT1f
against the high penetrating power of the
guns. Nor Is it simply great blocks of
steel and high charges of powder which
have made the modern gun; little by little
strains and proportions have been worked
| out by these engineers until the modern
| ordnance engine has become a piece of
mechanism beautiful in its lines of resist
| ance.
The work of the Sandy Hook proving
grounds is not merely the mounting. load
ing and firing of the guns, nor is it an
attempt merely to burst defective work
manship, but shot must be studied in
flight and guns in recoil with their proper
and improper charges of powder until the
engineer has the data for constructing the
gun which will not burst and the carriage
which will not break up or fail in its duty.
To the stranger who visits the post from
time to time and sees from month to month
always in a like routine, there is little evil
dence of the work really done, and he
[ does not realize that this work which is
being done upon types is really determin-
ing the whole construction of our future
| armament. Yet such is the very work of
| these three or four officers who are firing
from day to day guns great and little at
Sandy Hook.
Essentially the testing of a gun is de-
termining the speed of the shot and the
pressures along the bore produced by diff
ferent powders and charges; the velocity
| of recoil, and hence the strains in the car
| riage. Suoh scientific study of gun be-
gan in Count Rumford's time, when Ben
lamin Robins in about 174O invented the
balllstio pendulum. Just as you would
know how hard you had pushed swing
with your hand to drive 1t for
a certain distance up along it's
arc, SO he had the musket balls of those
| days strike heavy iron plumb bob, to
which was bolted a wooden facing for the
lodRment of the ball. A steel tape attach
ed was dragged out beyond two clips and
recorded the swing of the pendulum.
Count Rumford himself used this pendu-
lum of Robins, but as check suspended
the gan to be fred as pendulum also, and
30 at each experiment had record of the
force of the ball and the kick of the gun,
which should be "a the action and reaction