The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-10-10
MESSENGERS OF DEATH.
TaE PROCESS OF COVE 0TING
ROU6H LEAD INTO SHOT.

/ tedu icing perfectly round IL taxes Sixty
/ OF the bullets to weigh "a pound avoirdu-
/ pois. The smallest bird shot iB known as
Zine DUST and it takes IL, 544 Of them &c
! weigh pound. The shotmsker will tell
/ you gravelY that fine dust" measures 3-10C
1 Of an inch in diameter, Is perfectly round
I and has passed through exactly tae same
/ processes that have brought the smooth
/ little 44-caliber messenger OF death 70 kill.
| ing perfection.
When you were on vacation up at the
farm perhaps you saw farmers boy on
the kitchen door-siu making bullets in a
hand mold from lead that ne had melted
IN crucible about as Dig as a tablespoon
on the kitchen fire, but that isn't the way
| A-caliber shot is generally made. That's
/ only the boys way.
There Is another way by which one man
! can turn ont something like four tons OF
such bullets in working DAY, and il you
/ nave influence you may gain permission to
watch Charlie Petersen, sho.-dropper, slit q
sieve of millions of the fine dust' bird shot
| in a few hours.
There are two shot towers in New York.
| One Is located in Center street, aud 1t was
! upon Its parapetted roof that an EueniHg
! World sentinel used TO make his lofty percn
! IL VIC Jays VI ndilk4uES III Iuo lOuuOs anu
J from TINS place, bsIWIXt heaven and earth,
send to the Evening World the earliest
news of the exit Of the wretch on the gal
| lows below.
One catches glimDses Of the other tower
thin yellow spire it is with conical top,
as one glRnces down Frankfort, Beekmau,
Spruce aud Ann streets from PARK row or
Nassau street. But finding it is like ohas-
ing will o the WIsp. It Is ever close by
but on approach, like the cloud on the hill
top, it vsni. hes
This yellow shot tower ia part of the
| establishment of latham q Bros, S2snd "a
Beekman street, behind which it stands.
1t stands 220 feet high, and although it
was built IN 1851, requires only slight
stretcn OF the imagination to consider IL q
monument to the southern soldiers who lost
their lives in battling for the wrong, for
t Ms of bullets were made here for Uncle
Sam during war times.
j. B. Brooks, the man who designed and
built the latham & Bros. tower when the
latham g. Bros. were the fathers Of the
! present latham a Bros, is the present
| superintendent of the shot mill.
The shot tower has eight sides, like the
famous house Of John O'Groat. 1t has
eleven floors, and if you would reach the
top you must choose between climbing
winding stairway or squeezing yourself on
an elevator 30 inches long by 10 inches wide,
aud which has neither walls nor guard rail,
nor even a strap TO hang on by except the
hosting cable which grasps it in the center.
An EUeping World reporter and artist
! chose this way of going up, the reporter
riding on the roof Of the "liftn with Supt.
Brooks, while the artist divided the floor of
the elevator with a black and begrimed
workman, who knew enough about shot
making Co fill book.
The tower is 10 feet wide at the foot 1t
d Col ~ H.
feet from the ground the elevator stopped
and the four passengers alighted on plat
form surrounding & furnace. There was
no fire in the furnace, but the temperature
was something more than 1907, the heat
arising from red-hot furnace 100 feet far
Their down,
Mr.. Brooks explained that this furnace
was for use when It was necessary to make
the larger kinds OF shot.
This was one OF three similar furnaces,
each provided with a melting pot in which
four tons OF lead might be reduced to the
consistency OF hot maple syrup, when it
would run through an iron tube or spout
into giant colander, to be strained into a
receptacle 200 feet below, reaching the lat
ter as rough unpublished shot, but cold
enough to retain its shape.
The least observant person has hardly
failed to notice that liquid falling invari-
| ably takes on a globular shape, whether 1t
| be water, molasses or medicine Whether
it comesin drops from the mouth of a bot
tie or in torrents from = storm cloud-it
falls in little globules.
So with molten lead. 1t comes through
| the holes IN the giant colander and falling
assumes the globular shape. 1t grows cold
| and hardens as it falls, too, and lands 20C
feet below, tough and hard shot.
The smaller the globuls NJ molten lead
the less the distance required TO cool it and
harden it, and the visitors to the latham &
| Bros. tower found Charlie Petersen drop
| ping No. s shot, which is 9-100ths. of an
| inch in diameter and 472 to the ounce, from
a hight of about 100 feet.
1t was pretty, glistening shower thai
| came through the 2O0 tiny holes in his CO
| lander, but the constant shower would
! make a heap of several Thousand pounds on
the ground below by nightfsll.
The queer little elevator that hoisted the
visitor up to this floor brought up for the
| days work a truck load of pigs of lead
each weighing eighty pounds, and another
| truck load Of ''temperer," which consists OF
| lead pigs into which has been mixed a GER
tain percentage of arsenic, which has ten.
! dency to harden the lead when it is neces-
! sary.
Charlie Petersen as he stood over his On
lander of Lead, looked for all the world like
a ships cook over the bean porrIdge He
held giant spoon with which he CONSTANT
| stirred The seething mass or skinned the
Stag" from its surface. Then he had g
! long poker with which he gagged the fire
so that the big pot of melting metal should
never be hotter nor colder than 650e Fahr
| Occasionally by the manipulation of baby
! elevator, he brought up pepper box full OF
! shot from the depths below, sampled il and
| tasted 1t to see if it was neither too hard nor
! too soft, but it was like the wee bears bed
| just right.
| Going floor below, one found that a
scoop elevator was bringing the newly
| dropped snot up again to be dried on a NOV
ing disk OF polished steel, kept hot by steam
pipes underneath.
About the edge of the revolving disk was
little trough, its edge just below the level
! of the disk. Ii was two Inches wide, aud
beyond it was wider and larger trough.
Supt. Brooks explained that perfectly
round shot would roll down the slight in
! cline of the disk with speed enough to clear
the first little narrow trough and drop into
the wider trough beyond, while imperfect
shot were always lazy and would drop
| into the narrow ditch.
/ Chutes from tine dryers carried the per-
feet shot TO the first polisher on the Roor
| below. The polisher is a steel cylinder in
! which the snot is tuIDhied about and at lasS
tumbled out upon an inclined table, down
/ which 1t rols to leap, at the end, over a
/ lazy dltchn or into it.
/ II it goes over il falls into another chute
! that takes it TO the screening boards, TO pass
I fhrnr,,rb tEnafr1ra1 galan