The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-11

has an operative head and retentive memory, he can get gold of the varl- ous movements of big gun drill, and, II especially bright, he may even serve as gunner within year or so.
 But there are many auxiliary drills for the heavy artillerymen besides the main drills in infantry formation and on the big pieces. The drills called mechanical manoeuvres belong to the engineers. They consist of mounting and dismounting the big guns, and the heavy artilleryman is expected to master the uses of all of the parapher- nalia required in this work-almost every known style of gun, jack and tackle. It is very hard labor, besides, and it is also dangerous. There have been some serious and a few fatal &C., cidents in the United States army caused by the attempts of heavy artil- lerymen unfamiliar with the work to mount and dismount big guns. Off, cers are always in charge of this work, as matter of course, but officers do not man the guns and the jacks and the tackle, and it is risky business for men not used to it and perhaps a bit careless into the bargain. In posts | where mechanical manoeuvres consist of dragging the great guns to batter l les fixed on high hills the heavy artil- lerymen are often heard to express re- gret that they ever went for to take on, for such work is often very hard.
 Another manoeuvre that drives to desperation heavy artillery recruits who are not quick to catch on to intri- cate details is cordage drill. Some thing like a hundred knots are used in handling the ropes necessary for the hauling of great guns about from one battery to another, and the heavy ar l tillery recruit is required to learn how l to tie all of these knots. Some of 1 them do, but most of them do not A | good many of the heavy artillery sol- ] diers, good men otherwise, frankly confess that they forget the difference between timber hitch' and roll ing hitch,'' or a "sheep's shank" and a ''fisherman's knot,' between drills. There was a recruit out at the heavy artillery post of San Francisco, the | Presidio, a few years ago who tied ev- | cry one of the intricate knots and asked for more the first time he was rounded up for cordage drill, but he l was an ex-seaman. There are few ex- sailors in the heavy artillery service, and if any civilian thinks that this cordage drill alone is not good three years study, let him procure a copy of | Tidballs heavy ordnance tactics and attempt to tie some of the knots H. lustrated therein. The engravings of | the knots are very pretty and simple 1 looking. But making the knots out of a piece of rope is a different matter.
 Instrument drill is sprung on the heavy artillery recruit after he has had time to get into the swing of the other drills. It is in this instrument drill that the heavy artilleryman is expected to develope into very fair amateur scientist. Some of the heavy artillerymen become interested in the l instrument drill, or, rather, the drills on instruments, and take to the study of mathematics for solutions, but the majority of them listen to the elabo- rate scientific explanations of the off1- cers as to the uses of the instruments, their mechanism, and so on, and promptly forget all about them until the next instrument drill. The instru- ments are of all sortS-the aerometer, for example, which is used in the heavy artillery for the purpose of as- certaining the strength of the wind in it's possible deflection of projectiles; instruments for measuring the initial, muzzle and other veloclties of projec- tiles: instruments for measuring the power of powders; sighting instru- ments, range finders, search lights, electrical firing apparatus, and other small gear of scientific character too varied for mention.
 When the heavy artillery recruits have got well into the stride of these drills they take up block-and- tackle drill, which means that they are re- quired to learn how to rig any sort of pulling. hauling or lifting apparatus, consisting of enough puleys and ropes to puzzle the brains even of an old time man forward in the old half-sail- power navy.
 The heavy artillery soldiers who get through all these ordeals with great est proficiency receive gunners' med als of the first and second class, in ac- cordance with their respective de- grees of merit.
 It is considered likely that within five years at the most all the old-time great guns now in use at the American heavy artillery posts will be replaced by modern loading guns, and then, in so far as great gun drill is concerned, the men who remain in the heavy artillery service will have to be- gin all over again. If, for example, a couple of batteries of heavy artillery should be brought direct from a heavy artillery post in which nothing but the old muzzle-loaders were planted to Sandy Hook, where modern great guns with disappearing gun carriages : to say nothing of modern mortar bat teries, are set up, the lack of proper training of the ordnance soldiers would be apparent.
 When it is considered that, in addi- ton to all the drills that have been here enumerated, the heavy artillery man is obliged to take his regular trick in drill with the hospital corps and that he has all the soldiers regu- lar fatigue duty to perform besides, it does not seem so remarkable that the men who put in one enlistment in the heavy artillery service, when they re- enlist have a preference for the lone soldier, one gum idea as it is carried out in the infantry.-New York Sun.