The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-04-27

along the coast have been provided
! with theaa carriages. Some notion 1T
the wonderful perfection Of the me-
chanism employed may be obtained
from the statement Of military ex-
pert, who said that the operation Of
lifting aud lowering o Cotton gun on
one Of these carriages involves the
solution Of q mechanical problem
equivalent to stopping q locomotive
running at twenty miles an hour
within 10 feet, or half its length. yet
| so easily as not to occasion the slight
est jar.
THE MODERN WAR p%ROJECTILE
is q very different thing from the old
fashioned cast iron cannon ball. 1t is
conical, and pointed with steel 80 hard
that o file will not out it. Around the
sides, however, its steel envelope is
softer, for the reason that if the huge
bullet were Of very hard steel all over
it would be too brittle and would
smash up on striking such a mark as
steel armor. The ordinary she'll is
hollow and is loaded with powder,
which is exploded either on impact in
the manner already described, or else
by a fuse set to burn q certain time.
The armor-piercing shell, on the other
hand, contains no powder, being in
tended to penetrate. Some Of the
shells are loaded with little balls call
ed shrapnel, which are scattered de-
structively by the bursting Of the
projectile. Shells containing high cx-
plosives are not yet in general use,
though much talked Of; the French
alone have them in service. The
difficulty is to devise a safe method Of
setting them off. There is no doubt
that wet gun cotton will be generally
employed before long for loading
shells. The French ''melinite," which
is as explosive much more powerful
than %gunpowder, is poured into shells
into @ liquid state.
TEE AERIAL TORPEDO THROwER,
otherwise known as the dynamite gun,
has as yet by no means completed the
process Of its evolution. It throws
large masses of high explosives, from
100 to 800 pounds, with accuracy and
safety to a distance Of three and a half
miles. Fired at a ship, it does not
need to hit the target actually, mas
much as it is capable of deEolishing
any vessel, or Of rendering it hors-du-
combat at all events, if !. succeeds in
dropping a shell ucar it in the water.
If the vessel we're struck above the
%water-line, the conclusion would kill
every living thing in the barbettes and
superstructure, incidentally tearing an
enormous hole in the hull and proba-
bly, exploding the boilers. The water
surface within range Of one Of these
guns is laid off in imaginary rectsn-
giles, and any ship coming within
three and a half miles is obliged to
traverse one or more of these rectan-
giles. By a position-6nder the exact
location Of the vessel is known, and,
the gun being trained upon her in
expectation of her coming, she has
hardly entered the fatal ~Fectangle
when three messengers Of death are on
their way toward her. At Two and a
hole ~sloo Eco ocoe.:vo IN :~.l
shells, each carrying 200 pounds Of
gun cotton, have been dropped III u
~rectangle z yards long by FIVE and a
half miles wide.
THE NEW INFANTRY GUN.
The army that operates against the
Spaniards ON land will be provided
with rifles of the new type, which
shoot as fast as q man can pull the
trigger. The bullets are of lead. clad
in q steel coat, and leave the muzzle Of
the weapon with a velocity Of half q
mile q second. The soldier is able to
fire I've shots as quick as h. can wink.
aud in an instant he substitutes an
other set Of fves for the empty shells.
The cartridges are fastened together
in sets of five with paper strings, and
each man carries 175 of them. The
little projectiles have a range of two
miles, and will go through 80 inches
of piEe without injuring their jackets.
They will pass through even men
placed in line, and will pierce a tree
trunk three feet thick. Up to 400
yards. owing to the rapidity with
which they revolve, they have an ex-
plosive effect, smashing bones to spin
tiers and tearing the flesh to pieces.
RENE BACnE.