The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-04-21
MAXIM GUNS.
Jne Of the Most Terrible Automatic
Engines Of War.
instruments That Have Revolutions
lied the Methods of Warfare
Peace-PrOducing Terrors.

Inventive genius and advanced
Thought were not directed toward nfe-
arms with any degree of success until
about the middle of this century, ana
SO at the time of the war IN the
Crimea the English and their ailles
battled with their foes with arms that
Were practically the same as those lildI
had been used in the time OF queen
Elizabeth The arms were SUCH as can
hardly be found to-day, except as helr-
looms or objects of curiosity, ana thelI
destructiveness would not now COM
mend them to the verieSt tyro IN the
art of warfare.
1t was not until the war in the Crlmea
that thought was expended upon arms
and it was not until the war OF the re-
belliOn in this country that any au-
vanced step or progress was made Iflat
which was begun by the English our
ing the former war was brought TO d
high degree of perfection during our
War-a war which lasted over TOUR
years and gave opportunities TO crea-
tive minds to have tested such arms as
they could construct. Since that uine
progression has been rapid, and to-day
the world has weapons whose de-
structiveness seems but little short of
miraculous, and with which such
thing as a Thirty Years War would
be an impossible
1t is since our late civil war that
high explosives have been discovered
and made applicable to warfare, and
it is also since that that guns have
been invented in which the energy de-
rived from burning powder is made to
do much that otherwise would have to
be done by hand-automatic guns. Ma
chine guns and automatic guns are the
highest types of firearms that have
been invented, and indeed it seems i'm
possible to imagine anything more like
ly than they to bring about a gen
eral state of peace among all nations.
Their very destructiveness is the great
est peace-producing argument that can
be advanced.
The history and development Of the
automatic system of firearms begins
with the work that was done by Hiram
S. Maxim and his father at Orneville,
Me, in 1854. Mr. Maxim, ST., was the
first man, so far as known, who con-
ceived the idea of making a machine
gun, and Hiram s. Maxim claims that
he himself was the first person to de-
wise an apparatus which would success
fully load and fire itself
In 1854 the Maxims lived in Orne-
Vile, Me There the father had grist
mill and a woodworking shop. The
father conceived his idea of a machine
gun, and as metallic cartridges did
not then exist he proposed to load short
sections of steel tubes. each provided
with a common percussion cap, and 10
connect them together in the form Of
chain. He proposed to use single
barrel and to feed the cartridges into
position by the action of a hand lever,
something after the manner Of a Nor
denfeldt gun. The drawing back of the
lever cooked the hammer and turned
star shaped feed wheel sufficiently to
bring a loaded tube in front of the
barrel. The forward action of the
handle brought suitable mechanism to
bear on the end of the tube, and by
means of a toggle joint, the tube was
supposed to be pressed so firmly
against the barrel or into the barrel,
that no gases could escape. He be-
Iieved that with a gun of this kind he
would be able to fire 100 rounds in
minute from a single barrel.
Hiram s Maxim made the drawings
and models of his fathers gun. He
took them to a gunmaker at Bangor,
who thought we'll of the gun, but said
it would take a lot of money to con-
struct it. Hiram kept on thinking
about the gun. and making various i'm
provements on it. At the age of six
teen he sent a wooden model to an un-
Gle in Fitchburg, Mass, who advised
him that it would cost 500 70 make
the gun and that when finished it
would not be worth 100 cents. This
was the great inventors first expert
ence with machine guns.
Then came the civil war. and with it
metallic cartridges. Efforts were
made to have some one take up the
gun but without success. After the
war Hiram visited the South, and
while there joined a. company Of ex
"ebels in firing at a target with Spring
field muskets- He found that the
musket gave a very powerful kick
when discharged, and on his next visit
to Maine related his experience to his
father He told him he believed that
the energy of the kick of a military
rifle would be amply sufficient to per-
form all the functions Of loading and
firing. so that if cartridges We're strung
together in q belt. a machine gun
might be made in which it would only
be necessary to pull the trigger, and
that the recoil would feed the cart
ridges into position. close the breech.
release the scar, extract the empty
case expel it from the arm. and bring
the next loaded cartridge into position.
Hiram's father believed that such an
apparatus would be complicated and
expensive so much so that il would
not be employed as a military weapon,
and advised Hiram to make a machine
gun on his own plan. In the mean
time, however. other hand-worlled ma
chine guns had been made. notably the
Calling, and the matter was allowed TO
slumber.
Hiram s Maxim went to France in
1881. and before 1883 had thought out
an automatic gun. In his first arm,
however. the barrel did not participate
in the recoil, the recoil action being
confined altogether to the breech me-
chanism and the cartridge case. the