Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1909-05-20

AT Washington is taught the subject
of Gun Construction where the stu
dent learns why and how a gun is
built up of layers or jackets
shrunk one over the other, sees in pro-
cess of construction the guns from the
gigantic 65 ton Breech Loading Rife
that will throw t13O-lb projectile
a distance of several miles, down to
the small, rapid-fire guns that do not
look so titanic. but are able to make it
interesting to the smaller craft at
range of two or three miles, Just the
same. The different marks and mod
ifications of Breech Mechanism are
carefully studied for some weeks, the
various forms of Gun Mounts, from
the little tripod of the Colts Auto
matte Rifle (which small gun, we learn,
should not be fred more than 400 times
per minute up to the mighty turrets,
built OF armor several inches in thick
ness, carrying the largest guns side by
side in pairs, and revolving to point
in any direction by we'll protected
electric motors that are controlled by
the gun pointers as easily as an air
rifle in the hands of a small boy.
Other things follow, Sights and
Sighting, Telescope Sights, Explos-
ives, and others, until now the thor
oughly interested Sailor feels that,
given time and money, he could build
rather an interesting Navy of his own.
1t is an interesting week spent at
Indian Head, Maryland, where the
Naval Proving Ground and Smokeless
Powder Factory are. There are always
some guns to test, she'll or powder or
armor to be tried out, and it is moth
ing short of romantic to stand safely
behind ten inch steel plate on top of
the 'bomb proof and watch shell
punch clean hole in several inches of
the toughest and hardest armor that the
ingenuity of man can produce Then
there is the smokeless powder, a mil
| lion pounds year made here, which
amount just about compensates for
what we use in target practice to make
opr marksmen the quickest and surest
in the world. But who would have
thought that the terrible gun cotton
and smokeless powder are simply nitro
cellulose, or merely cotton treated
with nitric acid-albeit the process Of
treating and purifying is long anG
painstaking one.
While all this is being learned it il
not forgotten to give every man two o.
three days a week in some of tn,
shops, working at lathe, making
something in the carpenter shop, try
ing his hand in the forge shop, copper
smith shop, foundry, or some othe.
equally interesting place. Neither il
the social side of life forgotten, for on
ly few men are required to remail
in the quarters every night, the 9th
ers being allowed to go out in town
where most of them have rooms ant
civilian clothes, for the sailor is a
desirous of forgetting shop as any o
his brothers in civil life, and yo,
wouldn't be apt to guess that th
erect, smartly dressed young felloy
that sits next to you in the theate
wears a pea jacket and wide bottome
trousers and does his best every day i
the week to make the Navy a res
"home" for himself and shipmates an
power to be respected by all tn
: world.
The examinations over, and the me
graduated they are ordered to whereve
seamen gunners of their respective re-
tings are required, some to the Pa