The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-11-16
Old Warship Is Nearly Ruined
 By Two Explosions FORCE IS MOST TERRIFIC
Naval Officers and Experts are Highly Satisfied With the New Explosive Which Is Said the Most
 Power ' .~ own

Fort Monro .tS.o November B.-Hlgh explosive te S.c the monitor Puritan. anchored Y .S ton Roads, today dam aged the ., so seriously that it was neeessaY n., 0 $ end hurry call to the Norfolk yards to have tugs sent up at once u ow the battered warship to drydock. The tests made were required by a provision in the ordnance appro- priation bill passed at the last session of Congress.
 Two explosions were made, each with POO pounds of nitro-glycerine gelatine. un- confined, except as to a thin covering of sheet iron. In the first test the high ex- plosive was placed against the side oi the after turret of the monitor in the second against the side of the vessel just above the water line.
 Naval officers and experts present ac- knowledged that more damage was done than they had anticipated.
 The first explosion cracked the sids plate of the turret, which is eight inches thick, and forced 1t inward about eight inches.
 A cat and two chickens placed In the same positions that the gunners and sighter would occupy were not killed The second explosion bent in so badly the 10-inch side plate of the vessel, there by opening a big hole below the water line, that the rear end of the boat sank to the bottom in less than two minutes after the explosion.
 As the Puritan draws IS feet and was only in 19 feet of water she did not dis appear below the surface of the greedy, green waves. But in a few minutes at least one of the big compartments was almost filled and water was pouring up from below deck and over the stern of the old fighter
 All Damage Not Known Until the vessel is dry docked it will be impossible to determine the exact ex- tent of the damages below the water line or how much of the lower part of the vessel was flooded. It was not believed. however, that the armor plate was cracked, although it was bent and stove in about 10 inches.
 Of the two explosions, the second was the more severe. the nitroglycerin caus- Ing the monitor to shake as if she had bean struck by a small earthquake and it was even felt slightly on other vessels lying about too yards away. Capt Aus tin M. Knight. president of the special naval ordnance board, who remained on the Puritan to discharge the explosive, said that the shocks were quite severe. While it was not shown positively thAt the new explosive, the invention of VII liam 1sham, is more destructive than the present form of explosives which does It's deadly work from the inside rather than the outside nevertheless it was practically acknowledged that serious consideration must be given to the new outside explosive. Mir. Isham himself was present to witness the tests. With the first test he was not satisfied, claiming that if it had been against a fiat instead of rounded surface it would have worked much greater havoc Tho second explosion accomplished nearly as much as he expected.
 Cats and Chickens Safe
 On the Puritan with Captain Knight at the time of the explosions were the ship cat and the cat which MT. Isham brought along to place in the turret, the chickens and four sailors.
 Most of the navy and army officials and powder experts who went down to wit ness the tests were aboard the tug Wah- neta Among them were Rear Admiral Mason, chief of the bureau of ordnance Chief Constructor Watt of the navy, Ma jor O'Hern of the ordnance department and Gen. Arthur Murray, chief of the coast artillery. The Wahneta anchored about 800 yards on port side of the Puri- tan, the side on which the tests were made.
 AS soon as the Puritan is dry-docked the special board on naval ordnance at Annapolis will make report
 Mir Isham's explosive is composed of 92 parts of nitroglycerin. parts gun cot ton and 1 part marble dust. It forms a gelatinous substance. He claims that il Is far more powerful and more destruc- tive than the present form of explosives.
 The naval experts who were present today claimed in spite of the dama ge done that a modern 12-inch shell would have done more harm. They pointed to the tests on the Florida a few years ago as proof.