The age-herald., 1901-11-12
DYNAMITE GUN ID DEFEND NEW YORK Destructive Powers in Excess of Any Weapon Used TESTS ARE SATISFACTORILY The First Shot Carried Fifty Pounds of Explosive 5,76s Yards-sent
 colume ofwater 300
 Feet High.
TESTS ARE SATISFACTORILY

New York, November I.-Highly suc- cessful tests of new dynamite gun of destructive powers in excess of any weapon hitherto designed have just been privately conducted by a special board of officers of the Bureau of Ordnance of the United States Army at Fishers Island. The government has for several years been engaged in the erection on Fishers island of Qualifications on a CO., lossal scale intended to make the west ern entrance to the sound impregnable to naval attack and secure the safety of all the cities along the Sound from New London to New York.
 In this system of defense the new gun, which is mounted so as to cover the channel between Fishers island and Plum island. on which heavy batteries have also been erected, Is expected to play an important part. The utmost secrecy has been enforced by the government relative to the works on Fishers island and the government has not made public the tests. The gun, which was built in Scranton, Pa, was recently installed in a battery at the western end of the island. It Is of the same pneumatic type as the guns of the batteries now in posi- tion at Sandy Hook and San Francisco being forty feet long with a caliber of fifteen inches, but embodies many new features including rapidity of action and accuracy of fire.
 New Type of Fuse.
 A new type of fuse has also been sup piled which assures absolute precision of explosion of the shell both on impact and by delay action. The tests were made before a board consisting of Ma Jor McNutt and Birney, of the Bureau of Ordnance and many artillery officers from the fort in the vicinity. With the full caliber projectile the gun proved its ability to hurl 500 pounds of nitro-gelatin, said to be sufficient to annihilate any battle ship afoat at distance of about 5000 yards with a degree of accuracy not excelled by the latest types of heavy rifled ordnance
 Two days were devoted to the tests. The first shot hurled a six inch shell carrying fifty pounds of explosive dis tance of 5,763 yards, bursting on i'm pact with the water and sending a col umn of water 300 feet in the air. With a ten-inch shell carrying 200 pounds of explosive the extreme range was found to be 5,460 yards. the shell explod- ing under water with the desired delay action of two seconds.
 Test of Accuracy.
 In the test of accuracy five S-inch shells were dropped at the respective ranges of 5O43 5035, 5020, 5040 and 4970 yards all of which would have taken effect assuming that the target had been battleship about three miles away or about double the distance of 25O0 yards, now generally accepted as the limit of practical fight ing range. In the test for rapidity of fire five full caliber shells weighing 1IS5 pounds or more than half a ton each. were discharged in Il minutes and 55 sec onds, almost bringing the weapon within the calss of rapid fire process. The test of endurance called for the firing within twenty minutes of twenty-five air shots, or what in an ordinary gun would be called blank cartridges. but no difficulty was experienced in firing forty shots in that time without any appreciable loss of pressure in the storage reservoir. their pressure in the gun remaining uniform at each shot at 1000 pounds.