The Monte Vista journal., 1917-08-11

."'h y niue further, ana much of
the power has become hydraulic. You
can see the huge hydraulic accumulo.
TORS rising ana falling according ns
the creation of power here overtakes
or is oVertaken by the dissipatic, of
power in the factory.
Having grasped this, you may enter
the factory. You there discover az or.
binary railway wagon behind row
OF forges. The wagon is full of Steel
lagots which have made a long iour.
ney. They are craned out-they
weigh three ana one-half hundred.
weight apiece-and put into the forges,
ana when they are white hot they are
dropped into a hydraulic machine
which both pierces and shapes them
and from which they emerge, after
pressure of $50 tons, in the shape of
nine-inch Shells
That is the first operation out of
more than a score of quite separate
operations. Then the rough carcass is
"centered,' its nose is bored, its cav
ity is bored, and the screw-thread is
milled in the cavity the beautiful
'sink-and-wave" channels are cut in
TO go, the base plug is fitted (and no
mortal power could unscrew that base
plug once it is screwed in). the inside
is polished and vanished and the var
nish dried, the base is faced"
Then comes the coppcr-band bust
ness, which resembles in its finish the
jewelers. craft. The copper band is
Jammed on by incredible main force, but
after it is on it is treated with the
most astounding fineSSe. and the Shell
leaves that series of operations gleam-
ing with its cut and carved bangle.
You see it next in the painting room,
where everything and everybody is of
yellOwiSh-brown color and where
there is not such thing as brush ex-
cept the floor sweeper. The paint is
sprayed on to the shells as they hang
in rows and thus the painting is ac-
cOmplished with an evenness, pre-
cisiOn, and celerity which would ia
tally shock houSe-painters. A few
yards further, and the shells are dried
in gas-heated cupboards and out of
these cupbOards they are waited into
an ordinary railway wagon and they
disappear from the factory forever.
They are not yet truly shells. They
are only shell-cases. They travel every
where to be filled. Therefore you do
not witness either the beginning of the
work (the steelmaking) or the end of
it. The metal, as far as you are con-
cerned, springs from one mystery and
vanishes away into another.
Men Able to Endure More.
I have catalOgued by no means all
| the operations, and l have given no
hint of the important differences in
| the two nevertheless similar processes
| for nine-inch shells and for siX-inch
| shells. | have offered only general
indication, and space will not permit
more. 1t should be added that some
of the operations are done exclusively
| by men (such as forging) and some
exclusively by women (such as paint
| ing) and some equally by men and
women. For example, there are four
"bays' of nose and bOdy-boring ma
| chimes, two bays for each sex. | was
| told that in the briefer operations de-
| manding close concentration the wOm-
en- rivaled and perhaps eXcelled the
men, whereas in the long, tedious op-
erations (not demanding physical
Strength) the men easily beat the wom-
en-, whose attitude was apt to be: "Oh.
bother! I've had enough Of this ex-
asperating dullness!"
Another aspect Of the colossal or
ganism is the checking and testing
aspect. If you examine this long
enough you will become obsessed by
it, so that you will arrive at the stage
of thinking that the manufacture OF
shells consists chiefly in checking and
testing. Every shell, us soon as 1t has
cooled from the redhOt condition, Is
provided with its biography, which 1t
bears on a card in its cavity. Every
where on the walls are tabular state
ments which are continually being add
ed TO. At every corner stand girls
and men writing down figures In note
books.
Every shell is gauged for all Its Ill
mensions. 1t is also weighed, for I;
shell may be right in dimensions and
vet wrong in weight, in which case
it won't do. Every gauge is periodi'
cally tested by experts in the gauge
testing room. And a certain percent
age of shells, when they are almost
finished. are deliberately sawed tc
pieces again. and samples of their stee