The Norfolk Virginian. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 186?-189?, 1896-11-27
Remarkable Progress Made In the Work of
Constructing Coast DefenCeS.
THE WORK is BEING RAPIDLY PUSHED
SpIeudid Guns of the Latest Con.
structiOn AFRO EcinE Mounted BE.
hind tho Most Modern Fortiiica-
ttons The Work is Far Advanced
-Smokclcss Powder Eseds

penditureS aSgreSatinS nearly $52,000,-
600, and an uneXpendcd balance of near
ly S2000,000 turned back into the Trea-
sury at the end of the fiscal year
For the three years of Col. Lamont's
administration the surplus has amount
ed to more than S5,000,000
ENEItG ETIC WORK.
On the 1st of July. 1893. for modern
defense, but one high power gun was
mounted. by the 1st of next July we
breech leading guns and n!nc;y-five
breech loading mortars of modern de-
elgn. and by the following July, on
completion of work already under way
or provided for. l2S guns and 163 NOR
tarS.
y battery of two or three of these guns
takes the place of tine former preten-
tious fort and is vastly more effective
An eight-inch gun weighs 141a tons, Is
22H feet long, requires q powder
charge of 125 pounds and throws pro-
5ectile weighing 200 pounds about nine
miles. ten-inch gun weighs 30 tons,
Is 30M feet long, requires n powder
charge of go pounds and throws a pro-
jectile of 575 pounds about ~ miles. \
twelve-inch gun weighs 81 tons, is 40
feet long, requires powder charge of
$40 pounds and throws "a 1,000-pound
projectile thirteen miles. a twelve
inch mortar weighs 29,lS0 pounds, is IS
feet long. requires a powder charge of
i05 pounds and throws filled proicc-
tile weighing 500 pounds over five
miles.
WORK IN PROGRESS.
The defenses now under consideration
are distributed among the ports of
Portland, Me-, Portsmouth, y. H., Bos-
ton, Narragansett Bay, Eastern en-
trance to Long Island Sound, Eastern
and Southern entrances to New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington.
Hampton Roads, Wilmington, Charles
ton. Savannah. Key West, Pensacola.
Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, San
Diego, San Francisco, the mouth Of the
Columbia river and Puget Sound
The total amount appropriated for
seacoast defenses, including cost of
sites, fortlficationS and armament since
the adoption of the present scheme, is
$26, ,457 900. of which more than one-thrd
was carried by the act passed at the
last session of Congress.
Before the end of the present year
we shall have eleven twelVe-inch. forty
two ten-inch. eight e!ght-inch, six rapid
fire guns and ll2 mortar emplacements.
BY July next there should be COM
peted fourteen twelve-inch, forty-siX
ten-inch, ten eight-inch and twelve
rapid fire guns and 112 mortar emplace-
ments And by the close of the coming
year this will be increased to twenty
one twelve-inch. siXty-s!X ten-inch.
twenty-five eightinch and sixteen rapid
fire guns and 156 mortar emplacements.
A PROBLEM SOLVED.
In the belief that the problem of a
satisfactory disappearing gun carriage
had been solved. the Appropriations
Committee were Informed at the pre-
vious session of the present Congress-
that this department proposed TO spend
no more money for gun lift batteries
thus saving $4,000 900.
The construction of these carriages in
as large numbers as the appropriation
would permit was Immediately under
taken both at the Government carriage
factory, at the Waterson arsenal, and
under contract. y still more difficult
problem was the designing of q dsap-
pearing a!l-round fire carriage for the
twelve-inch breech loading rifles not
liable to get out of order and easy to
be operated. The technical difficulties
involved may, perhaps, be better APP
preciated when it Is considered that q
similar case would be that of fifty-ton
locomotive and tender, running at a
speed of twenty miles an hour which is
required 10 be brought to n full stop
within distance of sixteen feet, or one
third Of its length, yet so easily and
gently that at the end of the motion
there shall be not the slightest jar.
Both these problems, it is believed.
have been satisfactorily solved One
twelve-inch all around traverse disap-
pearing carriage is now unG @ construc-
ton and eight and ten-inch carriages
or similar design are about to be COM
menced.
NEW MAGAZINE ARMS.
The armament of troops with the new
magazine arms was completed in MAY
and the armory is turning out 125 rifles
or carbines per day under the appro-
priation made last year. All the am
munition for small arms now made is
supplied with smokeless powder of
American manufacture and satisfactory
quality.
The total expenditures for river and
harbor improvements ordered by Con-
gress during the year ending June 30
1895, including those of the Mississippi
and Missouri River Commissions, was
s17,039.000 Including the amounts ap-
propriated by the act OF June Sd. 1886
there was available for expenditure on
rivers and harbors July /, S26, 02O, 600
The Mississippi River Commission has
decided to discontinue the plan to i'm
prove the river by bank protection and
to adopt the plan OF dredging channels
In shoal places and maintaining, with
State and local cooperation, an effec-
tive levee system.
The army consists OF 25,426 officers and
men, or 2S4 below the legal maximum.
The effective field strength on October
e1st was 23,3S2.