Arizona republican., 1899-04-20

where there are six six-pounder guns, three on either side. The crews of all these guns were at quarters and there
 were besides a number of other men in the compartment at the time.
 Ut is miraculous that only one man
 was killed and eight wounded. The part of the ship hit is outside the cen 1 tral citadel and above the protected | deck. The sides of the ship at the 1 point of impact consisted of a steel plate 114 inches thick. The shell pierced this like so much paper, hit a metal stanchion amidships and ex- ploded about seven feet from the plat ing on the starboard side notc- worthy feature of the steel plating was that it afforded no splinters or debris to carry inboard. It was torn into ribbons and folded back in a way that gave the impression that the tough metal had been half melted by the impact and passage of the pro- jectile. The shock, however, was not sufficient to explode the shell. and had it missed the stanchicn it would have passed through the starboard side and possibly exploded outside the ship. Unfortunately the stanchicn was directly in the path of the shell, and the heavy metal column offered enough resistance to explode it. The effect was terrific. Although the shell was only small one, six inches in diameter, and, therefore. not weigh ing more than 70 pounds, it practical ly wrecked the big compartment in which it burst. while the smoke from it forced itself down the ammunition hoists and into the forward compart- ments of the ship, so that for q few minutes the crew were almost suffo- cated. The stanchion was shivered into atoms for two feet of it's length, and the fragments of the burst shell. flying forward against the starboard side, bulged the stout steel plates out ward to a depth of three inches. Just at this point one of the big double headed angle irons of the ships frame was situated. This great rib of steel, nearly twice as thick and heavy as a railroad rail, was cut through in two pieces as if it had been made of cheese. and nearly two feet of it was carried away bodily in minute pieces.
 ''The base of the shell plowed a fur row down the steel deck just as a blow would cut through the soft soil of a fallow field. It hit and broke an other rib of the ship. and, breaking it. self in two. both pieces lodged in cable reel standing close to the star board side. The core of this reel was prism of oak over two feet in cir conference. and there was wound Cn it at the time a ccil of hemp hawser that made a cylinder about four feet in diameter. The hemp rope was cut through to the wood and the stout oallen prism was shivered to splinters. This one fact alone would be suf?i- | cient to give an idea of the appalling energy of a modern projectile. Show CTS of steel sPlinters, resulting from the exploded shell itself and the tern stanchion ard angle irons swept along | the starboard side for about 90 feet. cutting off heads ef bolts, breaking gunfttings and stripping off the paint as if score of men had worked for | hours with steel ckfsels.
 Every man in it's path was wounded. | One gunner was hit with no fewer than 15 pieces of steel, each about the | size of hazel nut. At the moment | the shell exploded one man was stand | ing right in its path He was literally | blown to fragments. He was talking | to comrade, and, strange as it may | seem, the latter. although less than | arms length away, was unhurt, save for being knocked down by the shock | of the explosion. Others of the men, 30 feet from the fatal shot, had dozen | pieces of the steel plunged into their bodies. A remarkable feature of the was the smallness of the pieces into which the shell burst. It shivered into fragments weighing | about an ounce. The only piece of any size picked up was rather less than half the base, just enough to enable it to be ascertained that it had been a six-inch shell, fired from high-pow CT breechlocding gun, and exploded by percussion fuse fixed in the nose" IN. Y. Herald.