The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-24
AMAZING POSSIBILITIES.


in warfare, the first successful intro
duction of a dynamite throwing gun.
With this wonderful machine it has
been possible for a comparative hand
full Of Cubans, with little money hair
starved and unframed in war TO hold
at bay the very flower Of the Spanish
army and gain battle after battle
against tremendous odds.
The insurgents have had but stwo OF
these dynamite guns, and one OF thehi
was blown W in an explosion caused
by q shell striking their magazine. ct
the one gun remaining has gained Tor
them almost ali of their battles, ana
what is more has succeeded in lnspir-
ing the Spanish troops with such ter
ror that Weyler has been practically
unable to make any Roadway at all:
The accounts given in the reports OF
the Spanish authorities, as well as
those Of the newspaper correspondents
tell not only of the terrific slaughter
wrought by this new dealer OF death,
but likewise CT the extreme demoral-
cation of the troops which followed IN
its train.
With no boom of cannon, with hardly
more than a sudden swish in the air,
a shell drops into the midst of regi-
ment; there is q report as deafening
as the clap of thunder, and for space
OF 100 feet or more about where the
shell has fallen men are blown in
pieces and the very ground itself is
torn and furrOwed as if q huge powder
magazine had exploded beneath.
1t is practically impossible to gauge
the direction from whence this deadly
missile has been fired. 1t is certainly
from more than a mile away, perhaps
from deep in the woods, and long be-
fore the Spanish can so much as reach
the spot whence they believe it to have
come the gun has been whisked away
and is sending its fiery message from
an entirely different direction
IL the face Of such warfare as this.
the palsy Of fear seiZes the hearts of
the Stoutest. No man. no matter how
intrepid, or how foolhardy. viii viii
lingly face an eruption OF NesuVius,
and the terror and suspense which this
new gun brings in its train completes
the decentralization which its first shot
has begun.
This epochal invention. which seems
fraught with greater possibilities for
the future than any single invention
since that of gun powder itself, IS
American from beginning to end. 1t Is
known as the Sims-Dudley pneumatic
dynamite gun. and was first oiflclaHy
tested in this country before General
Miles and the ordnance board at Glen
Cove on Long Island last spring. After
q wholly successful test of its capacity
for throwing dynamite the gun was
blown I'D in firing a dummy shell OF
oak. which carried defective type OF
fuse. The gun was OF 4-lnch calDre
and delivered a charge of ii pounds of
explosive gelatine, the highest explosive
known, projecting it the distance of
mile.
This was equivalent to a charge OF
2SG pounds Of black powder. The S5-ton
gun with which the Notifications of
Il. Trf,fr n chiefly
shoot q shell which carries bat about
Is mounds Of black powder, so that
the charge thrown by this slender field
piece. weighing but One-eighty-fifth OF
the bombarding guns, was equal in eX-
plosive force 10 four times that OF the
ordinary heavy type of shell. This
charge was thrown With small blank
cartridge loaded with smokeless pow
Ger. and was shot from gun so light
that i can be carted around in an
express wagon.
The mechanism which does this mar
Veious work is simplicity itself. IL is
l.ade uD Of three slender steel barrels
laid SideWise like three fingers and
forming heightened coil almost eX-
actly like that Of q trombone, minus
the flare The middle barrel is little
longer than the other TWO and carries
the dynamite shell. The two outer bar
rels are air chambers Joined at their
forward ends. with the rear OF the
lefthand chamber opening into the
middle barrel. Just back 81 the smell
At what would answer for the mouth
NIECE of n troubone is q breech mechan-
ism IL which is inserted the blank
cartridge of powder which throws out
the she'll The rear of the middle bar
rel is fitted with q similar breech
mechanism, for the insertion of the
shell.
= f.1n
OF the lanyard ares the powder charge,
which is delivered into the air cham
Jaye ,ofnvresSing the air which these
ccntafo from LOCO to 1,500 pounds 10
the square inch. The force OF the eX-
,,lr=:--s cushioned by the column OF
All Intervening between the powder
cartridge and the prolectile IN the cen
trai tube is the pr0pellinG force, when
a1,.cls The latter. The action IS al
most sinulta aeous, the compressed ar
making n circuit of the coil almost in
silently and throwing out the shell
which lies in its path, bursts from
The .nuzzle with a pop little louder
than that of q goOd-SIZcd ar gun.
There is a particle OF smoke or
tame and with no more announcement
than this the dynamite-laden proJectlle
is sont living along its trajectory.
Practically the same effect IS here
ol,talaed as in the famous Zalinsh
rheumatic dynamite gun. with the dit
ference that the extensive air-com-
pressing plant OF the latter IS in the
case of The Sims-Dudley gun repre-
senfad by simple blank cartridge.
In other words. the latter does not re-
nuire a huge plant like unto that cm-
nloyed for running a street railway,
and the gun is 50 light and 50 thor
oughly takes up its own recoil that 1t
may be mounted on an ordinary
vaeon truck and fred from the wagon,
or set up on an ordinary cannon car
riage and rapidly hauled by single
Morse.
Indeed. in the smaller 255-inch gun,
such as the Cubsns have. which shoots
q projectile weighing II pounds and
containing a four pound charge Of eX-
plosive gelatine. the gun itself weighs
hut $50 pounds and its carriage as
much more. so that the two parts can
he transported en- the back of a pair
of mules.
The four-inch gun showed at Glen
Cove weighed just a Ton, the mount
taking up one-third of this. Fifteen
c,5nces of Dupont snokeless powder
formed the charge. and the gun had
baen fred over 100 times up TO the day
of the accident. The pTojectiles are
somewhat similar to the familiar type
,tsaa in the Zalinsk gun, the body of
the shell being a brass cylinder with
11ojnted ends In its front is a Merriam
f,,se and from its rear a tailpiece ex-
+e,de TO insure rotation. The entire
ehaiI is SO inches long and the charge