Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-04-22
BRITISH SHELL TESTS
BRING WAR HOME TO
PEACEFUL CAPE MAY
Big Guns Drive Missiles
Into Sand on Bay Shore
on Bethlehem Steel Com
pany's Four-mile Reser-
walton Near the Point.
CPicturcs illustrating this article will he
found the back paRe)


Major Chapman, or tho Blltish army, uld
drop Il shells into a circle of 10 feet in
diameter at three miles mot bad mark
manship, what?) over on the bay shore
the other day, and would have chanced
It if some trusting soul had stood so
yards from the target, it's Just well
TO he on the safe side and keep well away
from the line OF red flags that fly from
6O-foot poles for nearly four miles along
the beach
That is Mr.. Schwabs reservation. leased
for the summer for the testing OF shells
turned out by tho thousands at Bethlc-
hem, Pa, and shipped as fast as steam
can make ships go to Earl Kitchener,
dictator Of the British Empire.
For" uuoth the Earl 'the wars TO
begin in May" and when the next cargo
of shells from Bethlehem reaches the
front It will be May in Flanders. and
mad mid-AuEust. maybe. In the German
trenches IL those American shells act
right.
And that is what Major Capham s
down here for-to see that the shells be-
have. Of every 100 finished by the Beth
| lehem steel Company ono is shipped down
here. and that ! per cent makes such
| big total that they ran railway track
| right into the reservation, along the
| beach and leading. after passing the
| barbed wire stoclSade. right up to the
|
! affair. 90 feet long, on a 7-ton steel base
riveted into a great concrete platform.
! It's the sight of this formidable engine,
set barely twenty strides from where the
| tiny. toy breakers of the placid bay en-
brolder the tumbed. ragged beach edge.
| that makes the natives talk of bringing
| the war home to Cape May"
| Anyhow, the Major, they said, looked
in grim earnest while he was shooting his
| perfect II. just as though there really
| were Germans up there in the shallow
| water where his shells were falling. After
he'd heard from his marker" how well
| he'd done, he tried to look Indifferent.
"They tell me you can knock mos
quito off four-barred fence at 1900
yards, Major" said nm American.
The Major thouGhtfuly weighed the
chances.
"Oh, 7 should hardly think SC" he re-
Piled I'm the first place, YOU know
But. think OF the size of the Cape May
mosquito, Major"
"Ah. I sec! larger than | had fancicd
well, possibly yes, then, at 1900 yards.
And now I think l shall go and take tea
at the Point"
He has a mean mile and half walk
to Cape May Point, where he's stopping,
because the sand never gets pounded
hard by the feeble bay shore wavelets,
and one sinks into it up to ones boot
tops.
MANY SHELLS RICOCHET.
But all of these Schwab capsules don't
plunk so neatly within n given circle.
Many of them ricochet off the sand and
bounce away at all sorts of odd angles,
sometimes off among the dunes. TO be
buried forever i'm the soft sunny sand.
among the scrub oaks and pines; or
sometimes out into the bay, as If giant
were skipping fiat pebbles. Every one
that hits the sand either does this or
else digs itself in so deep that it's not
worth trying to recover So they fire
only at high tide, aiming at the wafer
n few feet from the shore on 3-mile
range When the shell hits the water,
cutting into il at an acute angle. it's
course is Strengthened by the resistance
IL meets to a line parallel with the sur
face. and It soon lands gently on the
bottom. To that Same place all tne
shells that are tested at that high tide
are sent and when the water goes out,
at low tide, the ''recoverers,' employees
who have been hiding in retreating caves
and noting the spot where the shells
fell, come out and gather them up.
But the rolling little breakers in spite
of COR, rather, because of their feeble
ness, by that time have shifted and re-
distributed the sand, and covered up
most of the shells. The men are able
to tell by suspicious indentations, not al
together smoothed out by the eraser OF
and dig them out. They are recovering
75 per cent of them, whereas the steel
company would be satisfied II they re-
covered only go per cent
THREE GUNS AT WORK.
There are three guns at work, the Al
inch one. a 33-inch gun, also on con-
crete base and mounted on a steel
pedestal, and an English field piece with
rifle slides back four feet on grooves
every time the gun is fired.
A curious thing about the firing OF these
guns is that, although they are only three
miles from Cape May less as the crow
fies) the town often doesn't hear any
thing on the busiest testing days, and
II 1t does is not sure whether II was
gun or an auto tire
That is the case when the wind is dead
from the Point, too, and the phenomenon
Is ascribed to the quality of the air.
hereabouts rich, heavily salted air, fun
lust now OF all sorts of fine unwarlike
odors of growing things, and chicken
hawks soar motionlessly, save for their
majestic swoopings, over hundreds of
downy little week-old chicks, that seam
per. frantic 70 the anxious hen ana
fish hawk, struggling fish i'm talOns
cleaning in the sun, returns TO its huge
nest, from where. out there beyond the
guns 1t dropped like a shot to snatch its
prey.
HEAVIEST FIRING IS COMING.
Otherwise the walk from this human
little old town to the reservation is very
suggestive OF what those guns mean. For
the tombstOnes In the country between
here and the bay outnumber the inhabit-
ants about 100 TO l. 1t sounded as II they
were trying 70 help the death rate, too,
yesterday, when As shots were fired.
They expect the real firing TO begin in
about a month, when there will be from
$50 to 200 shells arriving every day for
Major Clapham 10 try out. About a week
ago Lord Kitchener gave the Bethlehem
company another So 10000 order. and it's
all rush work They expect 5000 shells |
here altogether as the total, and even n |
Il stops there, that win make 40 days !
OF firing beginning the latter part OF !
NAY and lasting until about July l.
There are two kinds OF tests made. First |
that which involves the firing OF shells /
a.ong the shore This Is TO ana out what /
change takes place IN the shell when /
hred. the expansion Of the metal etc
These smells are eomplets except that I
they DO not contain the explosive which