The Washington times., 1901-11-17

! Thereupon the officer in charge said to
! him: This gun and this shell, and this
proiectile are sent here to be tested.
We are going to do it fairly. as you
can see But we know that they are
all extremely likely TO burst and kill
some one 1t is our duty to take the
risk, and it is equally our duty TO guard
! our men. That we are going u DO.
When the gun is loaded we shall re-
main near it to fire it and observe 1t.
You have not only the privilege Of re
tiring behind the bomb proof, but prob
ably we shall insist on your doing SO.
Or would you prefer to sit on top oil
| your gum
! The inventor decided not to sit on his
| gun. Indeed, when the word was given
| that all was ready, he was one of the
! first behind the bomb proof Ii was Just
/ as we'll In fraction af time atter
! the firing button was pressed there was
! no gun. The explosive had burst in the
I shell, the shell had burst in the gun,
| and the gun was in pieces. Luckily its
construction was so weak that II did
| not scatter with the deadly results that
! might nave Deen eNiStlSN- CtiiCi NiS'-s
not an officer would have escaped.
There is a gun lying in a prominent
part of the ordnance graveyard on the
| Hook That is, at first sight it appears
| to be a gun. on examination IT turns
out to be beautifully built-up piece
I of iron mosaic work That was a pat
ent gun The first shot fired from it
broke it into so many little pieses that
the authorities had them all collected
and put together again for relic. Some
of the fragments were found miles
away. Hardly one of them is larger
than a mans hand.
a famous corpse in the graveyard is
the multi-charge gun. In its time it
was far more famous than any of the
late patent guns for firing high eXplo-
sives. 1t made heart-burnings in Con-
gress, and there were many kindly and
pleasing remarks about the oDstinacy
and hide-bound idiocy and old fogy-
ism of the Ordnance Department, be-
cause it persisted in reporting to Con-
gress that the multi-charge gun was no
good. But the inventor Of the gun had
a pull besides his genius of gunmaking,
so he got an appropriation and built his
terrible engine Of war. II was like an
ordinary cannon from the muzzle to
about half way to the breech. But
there it swelled out into wonderful and
hideous protuberances. Each of these
proturberances were designed to hold
an enormous charge of powder. The
idea of the maker was that the first
charge of powder would ignite the sec
ond and the second the third, and so on,
and that all these charges combined
would drive the projectile with fright
full force. The multi-charge gun was
fired just once. Perhaps it cannot be
said truthfully that it ever was fired
even once, for the first charge of pow
der in the first chamber wrecked 1t be-
fore the rest had even become ignited.
There are all kinds of pleasant occu-
pations on Sandy Hook besides firing
guns. You meet man casually. He is
carrying a large glass jar with seme-
thing that looks like water in 1t.
He is merely an expert carrying
a new explosive that he must
test. There is a great line of ro-
mantle and mighty granite walls. part
ly in ruins, just behind the proving
grounds. They are the remains of a
great fertilization begun by the Govern
ment in the civil war and abandoned
when stone work no longer was useful
for forts. In the deep classmates are
stored tons of powder of all kinds. Red
tape forbids the destruction of powder
sent to the Hook to be tested And as
half ton generally is the minimum
quantity that the self-respect of the or
dfnary inventor permits him to dream |
blow a fair part of New Jersey into the |
moon and introduce the applejack in |
dustry on that planet with CELEBRITY.
Water is the one thing that they can
not calculate on at the proving grounds. |
When shell hits steel and timber and |
sand they know pretty well how it will |
go. But shell that hits the water NAV |
go in any direction. A ripple that is |
not big enough to rock a rowboat may |
divert shell and jump it miles out of |
Its course. One of the record shots at |
Sandy Hook with the Pinch rife sent |
the projectile more than ten measured |
miles out to sea. That projectile ri |
cochetted eight times before it finally |
took its last plunge. Every time IT
struck the water it roared as if a sea
monster were believing in mortal |
agony. Every time 1t jumped 1t jumped |
higher in the air than the masts of a |
full rugged ship
At an ordinary routine test a protec-
tile from 10-inch steel rifle struck the
plate true. went through the eight
inches Of steel, struck huge oak tim
Der. and sheared it clean transverseIy
as II it had been cut with a circular
saw and then hit the head of a little
5-inch bolt. and ricochetted and went
into the air till it was out of sight 1t
came down not a thousand yards from
the gun.
Around the base of every proJectile
there is band Of soft copper It fits
the rifiing of the bore accurately and
thus forces the shell to take its rotary
motion. Often, after a shell has gone
through steel plate. long pieces of this
soft copper are found forced clean into
the hard steel. as toothpick might he
forced into cheese.
CASIMIR'S CHEF D'oEUVRE.
The GrPuf ,s