The Savannah morning news., 1903-03-11
If BULLETS WE'RE
MADE of BUTTER.
Curious Phenomena of the Penetra-
tion of Glass by Soft Objects.

Curious Phenomena of the Penetra-
tiOn of Glass by Soft Objects.
Somebody-probably that indefatig-
able interviewer Lord Mahon-once
asked the Duke of Wellington why
Souham did not press him more close
ly in 1872, during which, out of a to-
tai of about 81, 1000 men. he lost 1000
by disease, struggling, and desertion.
Because" he replied, the French
had learned that our bullets were not
made of butter!" No doubt they were
very awkward pats" those. terrible
leaden spheres, weighing twelve to
the pound, which Brown Bess spread
with such deadly result up to her eff
fective range of a little over 100 yards,
and the lesson had been read to
French conscripts upon many
bloody field. What would have been
the bill of mortality had these bullets
really been made of butter? An idle
question, it may seem. yet one upon
which l was set cogitating the other
day by singular incident.
Returning one evening TO my own
house. l noticed a large round hole in
the plate glass window of the library,
as If a football had been driven
through il. There were no boys about
or the cause might have been such as
saute aux veux. Upon reaching the
library I found the floor covered with
shattered glass, showing that the i'm
pact had been from the outside, but
nothing was visible within to account
for it. The hole in the plate glass was
round and clean: the remainder of
the sheet was firm in the window
frame.
More puzzled than ever, 1 summoned
my better half to discuss the problem.
She, being of a practical turn, began
looking under the furniture for the
agent of destruction: while l stood
idle, considering such search super
fluous, mutely specializing how the
deuce plate-glass window was to be
replaced in a remote corner of West
ern Scotland. For, mark We, ii was
in the first days of the recent frost
and a keen north wind was bio wing
through the orifice Presently my
wife exclaimed: Here it is, poor
thing!" Between large armchair and
the fireplace crouched hen pheasant
which / caught. 1t showed no wound
or sign of damage, and struggled Wig
orously to get free. When il was re-
leased upon the terrace it flew a short
distance, alighted, ran away strongly,
and was seen no more. 1t seems to
me very remarkable that bird should
fly uninjured through a pFate-glass as
simply as circus rider jumps through
paper hoop. One has always been
told that any man of ordinary strength
can drive his fist through a door panel
The only one whom l ever knew to
attempt it succeeded, indeed, but at
the cost of dislocated little finger
knockle. 1t was explained to him that
if he had aimed at a point a foot
behind the panel, instead of at the
panel itself, his hand would have
passed through without a scratch
But who is there of fortitude to put
that to the test? How often has one
not cause to wonder at the thickness
and strength of an oaken rail through
which the slender cannon-bone of a
horse may be driven, often without
even an abrasion of the skin. Re-
verse the process; let the horses leg
be stationary, and the oaken rail be
driven against 1t at high velocity, and
who can doubt which would be shat
tered?
signal example of the imperious
nature of momentum was given a few
years ago, when a horse ran off with
its rider in the Mall or Constitution
Hill q forget which,, charged the
high iron ratings in front of Bucking-
ham Palace, made a clean breach in
them, and both landed unhurt within
the inclosure. Force is undoubtedly
one Oh lhe most intangible, 1nexpli-
cable Of mysteries. One is warned
against the use of anthropomorphic
terms in discussing it, when tend to
divert the intellect from precise anal
ysis, and we are hidden to regard IL
as no more than the rate per unit of
length at which energy is transferred
or transformed. But this carries the
ordinary mind not very far, in fact,
no distance at all, in apprehendine
what avails in the transference of en-
ergy from soft substance to a hard
one, to protect from instance such vul-
nerable surfaces as the skin on a
horses leg against oak or iron, or a
hen pheasant's head against plate
glass.-Herbert Maxwell in London
Pail Mall Gazette.