Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-06-02
HOMEMADE CANNON.
INVENTIVE GENIUS OF CUBAN LEAD
 FRS SUPPLIES THEM WITH ARMS.


 With g Gun Made of Iron Pipe-Every-
 thing Goes as Ammunition.
 Both the old and the present revolu. t1on against Spain ill Cuba have brought to the front many clever devices in the shape of homemade weapons. Almost everything has been pressed into service which would suffice for a cannon. Can non ill Cuba have been cast from crude bronze, have been extemporized from captured sugar mill steam pipes, and quite serviceable ones have even been made from wooden logs, wound with strips of green rawhide.
 There grows in the interior of Cuba a peculiar tree, with winding grain. The wood is remarkably tough, and to split it by ordinary means is almost an impossibility. When wanted for artil- lery purposes the tree is felled; a sec tion some five feet in length and foot Ill diameter is selected and cut; the bark is removed, and all knots and un- even places on the surface dressed down. The embryo cannon is then placed on rude trusses and a bore burned ill it with white hot erowbars or round iron pipes from the sugar mills. This burn ing out of the interior serves to still further toaghen the wood. While the bore is being burned green OK hides are cut into long strips by commencing in the center and working toward the outer edge, as you would peel an apple.
 When all is ill readiness one end of this raWhide band, which IS about inches ill width, is spiked to the wooden cannon, near the breach. A lever, or bar, is attached to the butt Two or three stout negroes grasp the arms of the bar and slowly turn the hollowed log on it's supports The band of green hide is kept under strain, and in this way the core of the cannon is wound with one of the toughest materials, outside of wire, in the world.
 The first layer of hide is tightly wound to the muzzle of the growing gun and back toward the breach; again to the muzzle and back until number of successive layers have thus been wound on and the promising piece of artillery has grown several inches in diameter It is then placed i'll draft of dry hot air and allowed to harden. When the hardening and curing process is com plete, the perseyering patriots have 8 really serYiceable weapon, which will stand greater strain than manufac- turers of modern artillery would readily believe. Tie resistance of this weather dried rawhide is next to metal, aud these fadely constructed cannon have proved far more satisfactory than those made from cast bronze, one of which at the first fire bursts il hundred pieces. One of these homemade combination wood and rawhide cannon is said to have Withstood l04 charges of powder before becoming useless. The projeotiles for it were made of scrap iron, round stones and fire hardened clay balls.
 When, in the early part of October last, General Gomez started on his now famous raid into the western part of Cuba, he had under his command but ?, 200 men, and these had hardly four shots apiece, although they knew they were going to meet 50, 000 well armed Spanish troops, intrenched along the first trocha, which extended 90 miles across the island near the eastern border of Santa Clara province.
 One of the first places of General Gomez s attack was the town of Pelayo, near the center of the trocha. Shortly before reaching Pelayo Gomez entered a sugar mill and took from it 8 piece Of iron steam pipe about inches i'll di- ameter, which had strong screw cap on one end. Near the cap he drilled small hole and had this substituted for 6 cannon, mounted on q rough wooden carriage The piece was charged with gunpowder and filled nearly to the mug gle with telegraph wire, which had been cut into pieces about 3 inches long. The gun, during the night. was brought up, under cover of the surrounding rocks, until within 200 yards of the nearest wooden fort The fort was summoned to surrender, and refusing the cannon was fired.
 The aim had been excellent. There was an American boy behind 1t, and perfect hail of cut telegraph wire swept the fort The gun, or steam pipe, strange to say, stood the strain. At the second shot the fort surrendered. This most useful piece of pipe was then trained on the second fort, which sent up white flag after the first fire. The second fort was in possession of Gomez, but the cannon had cracked it's whole length. Nevertheless 1t was moved and trained on the third fort Fortunately for the insurgents, this one surrendered before it was necessary to fire and the two re- maining forts followed suit. New York Herald.
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