The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-05-22
HUDSON MAXIM'S LATEST
Gun That Will Throw a Dynamite
.-. Shell Nine Miles,

Hudson Maxim announces that he
has discovered a gun that will throw
half a ton of dynamite nine miles
wrecking everything within an area
of 1900 feet The invention which is
to do this pleasant work embodies new
things in gun, powder and projectile
says the New York Press. To make
this invention perfectly clear to the
reader, it must be promised, aside
from the torpedo tube on the warships
the only weapon now in use that VIII
throw dynamite of serviceable charges
to any considerable distance is the
dynamite gun, of which type six are
mounted in forts in the United States
and which are represented afioat by
the batteries of the NeSuViuS and Mic
theroy. These weapons are worked
with compressed air, and as result
their range is limited strictly. They
cannot throw a charge of dynamite
more than two and one-half miles at
most, and their most effective range
is one and one-half miles. Compressed
air is used, because it alone. as far
as known up to this time, could dis
charge the terrible projectile without
exploding it inside of the gun.
Hudson MaXim's invention starts
with the discovery of form of powder
and q manner of using it that will dis
charge a dynamite prOjectile as safely
as the common powder guns fire a solid
steel shot. The range. too. is to be
equal to any that may be attained
with an ordinary projectile, and this
will wipe out the one great objection
TO the dynamite gun OF today-that a
ship could lie out of range of it and
shoot the battery to pieces.
No ordinary powder has been found
throw a 10 rsrra
of dynamite from a gun without eX-
pioding it in the weapon nine times
out of ten. Hudson Maxim declares
that a smokeless powder made by him
is so sure and reliable in its burning
that it can be used with perfect safety.
The torpedo 10 be thrown with the
enormous charge of half or even one
ton OF dynamite or other high eX-
plosive is, as may be imagined, made
with the utmost care. It must be
absolutely proof against shock and its
fuse must be sure not TO explode at
the wrong moment and sure TO explode
at the right moment. The torpedo is "a
inches in diameter and more than y
feet long for a ton charge, and u
inches in diameter and more than 8
feet long for a half-ton charge. The
ton charge can be thrown five miles.
The torpedo is made in two sections,
telescoped together, and the explosive
is forced into it under pressure. The
shells of the torpedoes are thin, and
one reason for putting the explosive
into them under pressure is that the
charge thus saves the torpedo from
collapsing under the effect of the
powder charse.
The explosive is so treated that it
will not explode under any condition
of shock and it is set TO burst through
tho explosion of a fuse which is so
q Aged that it acts when the torpedo
mas penetrated q certain distance into
the earth. water. or, steel, its defamation
being dependent on certain amount
of retardations of the projectile. When
IL is placed in the projectile it is sur
rounded with an exterior air chamber,
the function of which is to prevent the
fuse from setting off the explosive
through accidental defamation. As long
as the fuse is in the air chamber
its defamation would exhaust itself
in the clear space and there
would be no premature explosion.
Springs. g. prevent any movement
of the fuse, no matter how Vio-
lently the torpedo may be handled pre-
vious to its discharge. But as soon as
the gun is fired. the rapid rotation OF
the orojectile frees the fuse, and it
moves into the body of explosive As
soon as the projectile strikes the shock
hurls the fuse violently forward and
eXplodes il.
The gun 20 throw this -destructive
proiectiIe. as designed by Maxim, is |
much thinner than the ordinary high /
power rified gun, because, instead of
having to withstand a powder pressure
of 81, 600 to 40 600 pounds, it has to sup
port simply a pressure of 10000 pounds