The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-10
THE RuLLRT,s ANTICS.
Why it Sometimes Acts as IL it Were
an ExnIRzsv-
From the scfentiac american.

why II sometimes Acts as II 1t Were
an Explosive.
From the Scientific American.
DIR. Victor Horsley, F. X. s., in a re-
cent lecture at the Royal Institution, said
that he intended to Consider what a cyl
indrical bullet with a conical end does in
lts night and what it does when it strikes
an animal, so that one portion of his lect-
ure would deal with physics and the other
portion with pathology Sometimes the
wounds made were such that in some
| continental wars or outbreaks the one
SIDE had charged the other with using ex-
plosive bullets. Melsens.a Belgian physi-
cist. suggested the effect to be due to the
compressed air in front of the bull
let, and was upheld by Laroque,
OF Lyons; this point was contested
by Magnus of Berlin. DR.. Hershey per
formed several experiments with the fall
OF prolectiles through liquids differing in
vlscoslty, 10 show that the theory of
Melsens does not hold good Huguier, a
| Frenchman of science, in lS4S suggested
the hydrodynamic theory, which was
IN loI4-f6. He (the lecturer) had found
that it was due to two causes, the
amount of huidity of the solid and to the
velocity of the bullet.
The lecturer projected on the screen
two Photographic lantern pictures repre-
senting the effects produced by bullet
from the magazine rife when it per-
forates a plate of iron a quarter of an
inch thick
AS IF THE BULLET HAD EXPLODED.
In the first case the bullet telescopes
itself when it hits the plate so makes
larger hole in its passage. Where it
comes out of the same plate the hole is
still larger, because it there tears open
the iron, which at that surface has moth
ing but the air behind it Tor support
| When, however, a bullet is fired into a
wet, soft substance the conditions are
different. When experimenting upon this
latter point he adopted plan which had
been previously in use of firing bullet
into damp clay and then filling the hole
made by it with plaster of Paris, TO OBJ
tain cast OF the result, which he found
to vary largely with the amount of moist
ure in the clay. At the lecture he fred a
magazine rife bullet into block of clay,
about two feet long by one foot square,
and 1t made dubious hole of about the
size and form of an ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Florence flask; then with a large knife
he cut off the end of the block, revealing
the hole, larger than a clenched hand, as
il the bullet there had exploded. BY
means of plaster casts on the table he
pointed out that when less wet clay was
used the hole was smaller, and more of
the shape of soda water bottle, and
with less water in the clay, still the hole
was narrower, more nearly approaching
an irregular tube in shape, but largest in
the diameter near the further end. Some
times there is a diversion of the bullet in
side the clay from its original track, so
that the casts are curved which indi.
Gates the reason why surgeons, when
probing, are sometimes unable to find the
bullet. The greater the velocity of the
bullet, the more destructive is it to the
soft substance into which it enters. The
spin" of the bullet has little effect on
the result. He concluded from these re-
suits that the magazine rife is not ''hu-
name weapon"
THE EFFECT OF MOISTURE.
The speculation that some of the de-
structive effects of the bullet are due to
the conversion of some of its energy into
heat he did not consider to be Of much
moment; the heat produced is not suffi-
Gent to char paEticles of wool and hair
carried in by the bullet. Microbes car
ried in by bullet after passing through
the cloth can Gfterward be cultivated on
gelatine, showing that they have not sus-
tanned temperature above 40 Center
grade.
He next projected in the screen a pic
ture that represented the effect of firing
a magazine rifle bullet through each of
two tin cannisters filed with an equal
WGlElG VI lLuG' Inc F6ldUlNo size OF Jhe
bullet is also shown. In the one cannis-
ter the lint was dry, in the other it was
thoroughly wet, In the first case the
bullet simply perforated the arrange
ment; in the other the canister was hope
lessly damaged, and much of theslint
driven out in kind of column at the TOP.
He then fired n bullet through dough
containing % per. cent. water, and but
moderate eXplosive-like effect was pro
duced> On next firing a bullet through
flour containing twice as much water, the
dough was scattered in all directions
He then shOwed.the distribution of the
energy produced by the bullet in passing
through water by means OF trough ar
rangement with glass sides. closed atone
end with plate of iron and at the other
with good India rubber, such as ''heQisn
itself after the passage of a bullet. This
trough contained an aqueous solution of a
cylored dye, up to a marked level. A
sheet OF white paper was susp ended so
that its lower edge just dipped into the
dye. The point at which the bullet per-
forated the India rubber WAC three cent?
meters below the surface of tho liquid
The result was shown by the staining of
the paper by the splashing up of the col.
ored water, and shows that the ditribu-
ton of the energy is about the same as
when the bullet is fired into very wet
clay.