The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-02-25
SIGHTS IN A SHOT TOWER.
Billions of Leaden Pellets Are TuEn-
ed Out Every week.
From the New York Sun.

I New L OIkeTS Oile'ol lllc tdllVot 81 49,
of the town before the advent of the sky
scrapers was the old shot tower standing
within half dozen blocks of Fulton ferry.
To-day you can only see this latter struc-
ture from some nearby roof top. so com.
pletely hidden is it by the forest of high
office buildings. All the same, the indus
try pursued inside its slender smoke
grimed walls has lost none of IFS complex
ity and none of its interest.
The building was erected for the purpose
of manufacturing those small metallic
pellets used by sportsmen, and of these 1t
turns out billions every week during the
winter. Up near the top of the structure
are furnaces for melting the substance,
which is poured in showers of globules
down through the shaft These fall into
a well of water at the bottom, out of
which they are then scooped, to be sorted
into proper sizes and polished for the
market Each individual shot must pass
a test and be declared perfect before it is
permitted to go out of the establishment.
Among the numerous popular decisions
about the manufacture of shot" said one
of the attendants to me, lis the notion
that the little metal balls are made spher-
ical by falling from a hight through the
air The fact is that the perfect shot could
be made by falling two feet is just as well
as by dropping 200 feet-which is the high
est of our tower-if only they could cool
rapidly enough
THE shot" he continued "when they
are let fan from the top of the tower are
as perfectly spherical as when they reach
the bottom If they started in any other
shape they would not be made round by
their long tumble. but would be merely
slugs when they got to the water. But IL
is necessary that they shall drop long
distance in order that they may have am
pie time to cool and harden before arrlV-
ing a the bottom. AS for the water, its
purpose is not to chill them but to AFFORD
yielding substance for them to strike.
If ii were otherwise they would be flat
tened and made useless. The well in the
bottom of the tower described is twelve
feet in depth.
Our tower is not the only one in town.
he went on, though il is the tallest and
perhaps the best known. 1t has been call
ed the lighthouse of the swamp. 1t is
not unlike a lighthouse in its construc-
tion only ii is more slender and has no
lamp, of course, at the top. 1t Is close
upon 200 feeG high. AS you can see, there
is spiral iron staircase winding from the
bottom to the top around a central shaft.
To reach the summit is a laborious climb.
At hight of 40 feet is a floor with
furnace for melting the metal.
Thirty feet higher you see another floor
and a second furnace like the first. The
lower furnace is used for the smaller size
of shot BECAUSE they do not have to drop
so far in order to get cool. For big shot
the upper furnacefis employed. fall of
sixty feet would be sufficient for small
bro shot. The workman who tends the
furnace, you will notice, has half a dozen
utensils. which look like saucepans with
long handles. The bottom of each sauce
pan il perforated with small holes. There
is no other apparatus, for none is needed.
THE metal alloy makes its way through
the porous stuff on the bottom of the
utensil and forms little drop at every
opening in tne perforated bottom. The
drops fall down the well, followed by 9TH
ers as fast as they can form Being liq
uid crops, they are absolutely spherical
when they leave the saucepan. The man
continues to add quantities of melted lead
with his ladle as fast as it is required,
so that the shower of metal drops is con-
tnuous. By the time they have fallen 100
feet or more through the air they have
cooled and hardened so far that the i'm
pact of the water does not
alter their shape.
In the manipulation of the lead and
saucepan a skill is required which ma
chinery could not supply. II is not neces-
sary to have pan with distinct size of
perforatons to produce each size of shot
made to yield shot of several different
sizes by making the layer of the scum at
The bottom of the pan thinner or thicker
or by altering the temperature of the lead
alloy. The holes are punched by hand. At
the same time it is not possible to make
all the shot in a given batch of precisely
the same size.
For example, No, shot are made with
a pan that has holes measuring 4-1OO of
an inch in diameter. Three-quarters of
them will be of the right size, but from Is
to % per cent will be smaller or larger
than No. 4.
1.-THE best time to make shot is when
the iron sides of the tower are whitened
on the exterior with frost. In warm
weather leaden drors DO not cool so fast
as is necessary, and are therefore flatten-
ed when they come in contact with the
water. short time ago a visitor came to
the tower to see how the shot were made
! Great showers of the hot globules were.
raining down the long shaft. Standing
near the bottom, he thrust out his hand
to feel the leaden downDour. The fore
man grabbed the mans arm in time to
prevent him from being seriously injured.
Dropping as they do from such hight
the shot would have fairly riddled the
mans hand as gatling gun might have
rddled it. They look harmless enough in
their downward flight. but l would rather
face volley of musketry than stand at
the bottom of the shot tower.
From the well, endless chains Of little
buckets dip up the new-made shot, and
carry them to a floor above where they
are poured upon an inclined table of heat
ed iron. AS they roll across this table they
are dried by the heat. and at the other
end of 1t they fall into great bins There
they remain until they are ready to pass
through certain further processes, which
are required to prepare them for the mar
ket.
CON coming out of tho hipe tba,, syo into
a revolving cylinder, covered with wire
cloth. Friction in this contrivance re-
moves from them all corrosion and dirt.
Then they are conveyed by machinery 20
! a series of wide boaris like steps, the diff
ference in elevation between each two be-
ing slight. The first and highest board
is slanted sufficiently 20 set the shot roll
ing 10 the end of the steps. The other
boards are horizontal.
Now, between each of these step-lilxe