Waterbury evening Democrat., 1895-07-24
A CANNON OF RAWHIDE.
John H. Link of Syracuse Sur prises the Ordnance Board.
HIS GUN STOOD THE TEST WELL.


 the Square Inch, Apparently to the Dis
 appointment of the Officers. Who VIII
 Try It Again-The First of Its Kind.
 NEW YORK, July 24.-A rawhide can non, the invention of Frenchman named Frederick la Tulip, living in Syracuse, was tested by the ordnance board of the United States army at the Sandy Hook proving grounds yesterday. The cannon held its own against very severe tests. It successfully withstood pressure of 30, 369 pounds to the square inch, but the recoil after this shot broke the trail of the gun carriage, and further tests were impossi- ble, no other carriages being available at the time. Tho members of the ordnance board made copious notes of the workings of the gun, and maintained their usual silence when questioned as to their opin- ion of it, but it was apparent that they didn't quite see the great advantage to be gained by the use of the weapon, and had little faith in the claim of the inventor that the gun is destined to revolutionize things.
 The breaking down of the gun carriage was a disappointment to those who wit messed the test, and the members of the ordnance board were particularly annoyed by it. It prevented the other tests that the Ddu ueClueu 1O HeAS 4l4hU~ ed that the reason they were so much dis appointed over this breakdown'was be- cause they expected with these tests to blow the gun to flinders.
 Frederick la Tulip, who invented the gun, has patented rawhide boat and a number of other things made of rawhide, and two years ago he began work on the rawhide cannon. He says it is the first gun of it's kind ever made, though he ad- mits the mention in history of leather guns. La Tulip interested several Syra- cuse men in his cannon, and John H. Link, wholesale liquor dealer, finally pur- chased half interest in it and paid the expenses of having it patented.
 The Guns Good Points.
 Mr. Link knows absolutely nothing about guns and freely admits it, but he is firmly convinced that the rawhide cannon is the weapon of the future, and he it was who applied at Washington to have the government test the gun. The war depart ment ordered the ordnance board to test the cannon carefully, and yesterday was the day set for the test. In Syracuse they have been firing the gun privately in an armory for a month past, and there, MT. Link says, its most marvellous features were discovered. A national guard gunner named Snyder operated the cannon in Syracuse, and MT. Link informed the ord nance board yesterday that Snyder was fully convinced that it was great thing.
 The principal claims made for the gun are that it is only about half the weight of an ordinary steel gun, that it is just as durable and much stronger than a steel gun, and that any number of shots can be fired from it in rapid succession without heating it.
 TtTu0 l-S Inc fa oity and transferred to the proving ground on the government boat Ordnance. They have every kind of cannon imaginable at the proving ground, and the officers there know more about the fine points of the big guns than the men who make them, but when the rawhide product of Syracuse arrived they were utterly phased.
 They had never seen anything like it before, and the question of drawing lots as to who would conduct the test was dis cussed. The officers became firmly con- vinced that good charge would blow the cannon to atoms, and when Lieutenant Ruggles was finally ordered to operate the gun he was warned not to have the thing fired until all hands were a good 50 yards away from it. For two weeks the cannon has been at the proving ground, and among the soldiers it has been dubbed the ''hayseed gun.''
 How the Gun Is Made.
 Yesterday MT. Link, Major Auer of Syr- acuse and a number of newspaper men went down to the proving ground to see the gun tested. The full ordnance boa i'd, consisting of Major Phipps and Captains Crozier and Heath, were on hand, as well as a number of other military men. The members of the ordnance board wanted a full explanation of the gun and the mate rial of which it was made, and when they demanded this of MT. Link he threw up his hands and admitted that he didn' t know much about his gun.
 The rawhide gun used yesterday was not very formidable affair. It was feet 8 inches long and was of 219 inches cali Der. It was mounted on a most elaborate gun carriage, which MT. Link informed the board was made by the finest wagon maker in Syracuse The gun weighs 45G pounds and, according to the diagram, is made up of layers of steel, rawhide and copper wire. The bore is of steel, A oi an inch thick at the muzzle and 11 inch es thick at the breech. The rawhide is 1 inch thick at the muzzle and 8 inches thick at the breech and is cut in inch strands.
 Around the whole is wrapped two lay CTS of heavy copper wire. The gun looked strong enough to stand an ordinary charge, but not an officer present believed that there would be much more than a few bits of the carriage left after the first oi the heavy tests had been made. Mir. Link thought otherwise. He walked proudly around his cannon, giving it affectionate pats every now and then, and inviting the officers to blaze away and ''bust CT if you can."
 After severe tests the officers admitted that the cannon was more of a gun than they thought. The cannon was perfectly cool after every shot. The average recoi was about six feet. Major Phipps said aft CT the test that the gun to be of any use would have to be breech loader.