Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-03-14

ments military reservation among the
! Dover mountains in northern New Ter.
sey, eight miles from the nearest town
A mile away from the buildings or
every side are red signs announcing.
United States Naval Powder Maea.
zlne-No smoking The warn1ng is
forceful though brief, and is never dis
regarded The storehouses. OF which
there are four are long, low. yellow
brick buildings, placed some distinee
apart from each other along a hillside
on the middle of the reservation. The
place is reached by queer narrow
gauge railway which carries little ex-
cept Government freight and on which
there is no danger of collisions-for the
road boasts but one engine and very
few cars.
Here are stored million and a half
pounds of powder, enough to blow even
the surrounding mountains into moth
ingness should any untoward accident
ever set it off. But there is little dan
ger of that for the Government reser-
walton extends for miles in either di-
rection and the spot is carefully
watched by the men on guard who
carefully inspect the contents of the
building every day. The place is in
charge of Gunner Cornelius Duggan
and squad of men from the Navy De-
partment who live on the reservation
the year round and seldom leave
OF late most of the work of actually
loading the powder and projectiles in
to shells has been done at Fort Wads-
worth in New York harbor, where
about 100000 pounds of powder is stored
in bomb-proof vaults in the hillside.
The work there is in charge of Gunner
Soule and about twenty workmen who
lay aside pipes, matches, all metal they
may have in their pockets and their
leather soled shoes every day before
they enter the powder room in the old
cheese box fort.
In preparing the heavy charges a
cylindrical form is,used into which the
powder is carefully laid, first a tier of
black and then many more of the
brown 1t takes more than thousand
of the big six-sided pieces to carry a
13-inch projectile a dozen miles, and
each piece is laid in by hand with the
greatest nicety and care. When the
column has reached the proper height a
canvas bag is drawn over 1t, it is turned
upside down, the wires are withdrawn
and the mouth of the big bag is tied.
Next it is taken to where the cartridge
shells are standing, the bag is dropped
in and small piece of wadding is
placed on top of it.
The loaded steel shell is fastened into
the end of the cartridge case by means
of a screw and fits SO firmly that moth
ing but the charge contained within
"a 1Y.ixr 4 0ff - 10 |, I'M
is slipped into gun frame of exact
bore to make sure that it fits and will
not stick at the critical moment. Then
it is ready for the gun or to be stored
in the water-tight magazines of the
battleships.
United States war-vessels of large
size regularly carry 100000 pounds of
powder in their magazines. This is
their peace armament and is less than
half of what they are intended to have
on hand in case of actual or threatened
hostilities. Most of the magazines have
recently been replenished and put on
something like war footing. It will
be remembered that at the time of
her recent disaster in Havana harbor
the two magazines of the Maine were
said to contain 100000 pounds of pow
der.
Copyright, 1898, by Bachelor Syndicate.
The largest gasometer in the world
is at East Greenwich. When full it
contains 100000 cubic feet of gas. 1t
weighs 22Oo tons, is 1SO feet high, 800
| feet in diameter, requires 1900 tons of
coal to fill it with gas, and cost near
lly 10000.