El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-08-09
EFFECTOF BOMBARDMENTS.
Absolutely Impossible To Reduce
Land Eortifications BY Attack
From The Sea.

From The Sea.
The following press correspondence
from Santiago printed in the Buffalo
Express is of great interest:
over 81, 900, 900 worth of ammunition
thrown at the batteries defending San
tiago hsrbor was absolutely harmless
in its effect, so far as the reducing OF
the batteries was concerned, and,
while it may have given the Spaniards
bore out the well-known fact that 1t Is
q waste of time and money to lombard
earth works.
A party of naval officers anxious to
see the effect of the four or five bonn
bardments of the defenses of the hssr-
Dor by the fleet under Admiral Sam,p-
son, made a two-dsy tour of the bat
teries. finishing their work today.
Landing at the foot of the Moro she
party made the 21O feet of ascent with
some difficulty. The path VI s strewn
with ammunition-boxes containing
thousands of Mauser rifle cartridges ly-
ing all about. At the foot of the hill
to the rear OF the MORO where the
path OF ascent begins was q well-built
aud equipped electric station from
which TO set off the mines in the har-
hind bluff, the operator in this house.
gets a clear look at the angle on which
the mine controlled by his key lies.
Near him are telephones connecting
with a similar house on the opposite
shore. When q ship crosses his line
of vision, he presses down a button
that connects with the mine, but it
does not explode. When, however. it
crosses the vision of the man opposite,
he presses the other button connecting
the circuit and ship on the angle OF
these two sights receives the bonn l.,
Eight contact mines have been taken
from the harbor in the last two days
and today Lieutenant Commander Del
ehsnty began removing the electrical
mines.
Iiwould not have beenIpossible for the
fleet to enter the harbor without losing
some ships.s Lieutenant-Comma
Delehanty said today that the electric
al mines con tanned 200 pounds of gun
cotton, or more than four times the
ordinary amount.
Arriving on the hilltop the party
proceeded at once to the eastern bat
terry, where a great surprise awaited
them. There was the battery close to
MORO, which the commander of the
Suwanee had reported to Admiral
Sampson as containing several very
dangerous and large modern guns and
against which Admiral Sampson had
four times massed the flower of the
fleet, the New York, Oregon. Iowa,
Scorpion, Massachusetts, and Glouces-
| ter and sometimes the Indiana.
In rudely constructed earuhworks,
but with excellent and deep runways
for the gunners to bring ammunition
along or run for shelter, were four
| Misunderstanding, BRONZE cannon and two
cast iron eight-inch mOrtars. They
were brave men who stood upon the
parapets to load these cannon and
mortars and under a heavy fire it is
not wonderful that they did not answer
with much celebrity.
The cannon are very handsome old
pieces, cast in 1872 and named after
prominent Spaniards. The mortsrs
are dated 1895 and were evidently cast
in Havana. They have no sighting
| arrangement and only point in one
direction, so that unless a ship en-
tered their zone they were not
| dangerous
There were two little three-pounder
field pieces also, but they were evident
~ brought there to repel an expected
land attack.
ON the MORO itself were two bronze
cannon OF the same make and several
lold-fashioned small mortars. There
were plenty of explosives, but of the
old-fashioned kind, the bombs having
| wooden plugs and time fuses.
Although our fleet had bOmbarded
this place three times and the New
Orleans alone once, there was little or
no damage done, except the dismount-
ing of an old gun, the destruction of
| the lighthouse and a small frame house
near by. The damage was all done by
a dynamite she'll from the Vesuvius
The shell landed between the house
and the lighthouse and tore up a great
hole. completely demolished the house,
leaving but pile of debris and tore
out the side of the lighthouse. The gun
near by had evidently been wrecked by
| the conclusion
Large quantities of broken Amer
lean shell could be found about and