Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1893-12-02

The motor bombs which the repeller
was now discharging were of the largest
size and greatest power, and a dozen
more of them were discharged at inter
walls of few minutes. The promontory
on which the Notifications had stood
was annihilated, and the waters of the
bay swept over its foundations. Soon
afterward the head of the bay seemed
madly rushing out to sea, but quickly
surged back to fill the chasm which
yawned at the spot where the village
had been.
The dense clouds were now upheaved
at such short intervals that the scene of
devastation was completely shut out
| from the observers on the hills, but every
few minutes they felt sickening shock,
and heard momentary and horrible
crash and hiss which seemed to fill all
the air. The instantaneous motor bombs
were tearing up the seaboard, and grind
ing it to atoms.
1t was not yet noon when the bonn
bardment ceased. No more puffs of
black smoke came up from the distant
repeller. and the vast spreading mass of
clouds moved seward, dropping down
upon st. Georges channel in rain of
stone dust. Then the repeller steamed
shoreward. and when she was within
three or four miles of the coast she ran
up large white flag in token that hor
task was ended.
This sign that the bombardment had
ceased was accepted in good faith, and
as some of the military and naval men
had carefully noted that each puff from
the repeller was accompanied by a
shock, it was considered certain that all
the bombs which had been discharged
had acted, and that, consequently, no
further danger was to be apprehended
from them. In spite of this announce
ment many of the spectators would not
leave their position on the hills, but a
hundred or more of curious and courage.
GUS men ventured down into the plain.
That part of the sea coast where Caer-
daft had been was new country, about
which men wandered slowly and eau
tiously with sudden Explanations of
amazement and awe. There were no
longer promontories jutting out into the
sea; there were no hillocks and rocky
terraces rising inland. In vast plain,
shaven and shorn down to a common
lerel of SCARED and pallid rock, there
lay an immense chasm two miles and
half long, half mile wide, and so deep
that shuddering men could stand and
look down upon the rent and riyen
nt-, Ii l., al.
ton of the Welsh coast which had now
blown out to sea.
An officer of the Royal engineers stood
on the seward edge of this yawning
abyss; then he walked over to the almost
circular body of water which occupied
the place where the fishing village had
been, and into which the waters of the
bay had flowed. When this officer re-
turned to London he wrote report to
the effect that ship canal, less than an
eighth of mile long, leading from the
newly formed lake at the head of the
filled by the sea, the finest and most
thoroughly protected inland basin for
ships of all sizes on the British coast.
But before this report received due Off
cial consideration the idea had been sug
gested and elaborated in dozen news
papers.
Accounts and reports of all kinds
describing the destruction of Caerdaff,
and of the place in which it had stood,
filed the newspapers of the world.
Photographs and pictures of Caerdaff as
it had been and as it then was were pro-
duced with marvellous rapidity, and the
earthquake bomb of the American war
syndicate was the subject of excited con-
versation in every civilized country.
>