New-York tribune., 1918-03-25
Smelling Of Paris at 90 Miles
Recalls New Yorker S War Novel
me Man Who Rocked the Earth" Describes Relay Gun
r'f'ng ohell That Discharged Others Every Twenty
Miles, Last One Reaching French Capital

Nearly four years ago all America
read fiction story from tho no., of
Afthur Train, New York lawyer, who
makes his home at 1I3 East Seventy
'h'fd Street. and smiled the smile of
superior knowledge and disbelief that
greeted Jules Nerne's "Twenty Thou
sand Leagues Under the Sea-
they had dgested "Thc Man Who
rocked the Earth" and didn't believe
1acts set forth therein possible.
Yesterday all America read that Paris
mad been bombarded from point more
1nan sixty miles away Dy German arch
rehds: In the eleventh chapter of Mr..
ram M story occurs this passage:
ne moon rose over sleeping Paris.
SiiVerlng the silent reaches of the
SEINE. flooding the deserted streets with
i1eilow hght, yet gently retouchiny a! |
,he dishgurements OF the siege. No
lIghts Illuminated the cafes. no taxs
HIa.ned along the boulevards, no crowds
1oitered 10, in the Place dc TOpera or the
Place Nendomc. Yet, save for these
laets. 1t might have been the Paris of
olo TIME, unvlsited by hunger, misery
edge that the Germans second advance
mad been finally met and effectuallv
b.ocked sixty miles outside the walls
and that an armistice had been declared
si, 10 = 20 my .n1o erect at midnight. Paris
s'".ipercu peacefully. No shell
could be hurled distance of sixty
miles.
Behind a small hill within the Ger
man 1ortllcations a group of officers
stood IN the moonlight. examining what
looked superticially like the hangar of
small dirigiblc. Nesting behind the
NIL, 1t cast black rectangular shadow
upon the trampled sand of the redoubt.
A score OF artisans were busy filling a
deep trench through which q huge pipe
led off somewhere--a sort of deadly
plumbing, for the house Sheltered
monster cannon reinforced by Jackets
OF lead and steel. the whole incased IN
a cooling apparatus of intricate manu-
tacture. From the open end of the
house the cylindrical barrel of the ci-
santlc engine Of war raised itself into
the air at an angle of 40 degrees, and
from the muzzle to the ground below
1t was drop of more than eighty feet.
On track running off to the north
rested the projcctiles side by side. re-
senbling in the dim light row of
steam boilers in the yard of locomo-
tive factory.
Death Engine Ready
Well remarked one of the officers.
turning to the only one of his compan-
ions not in uniform, 'Thanatos is
ready
The man addressed was Won Heck
mann, the most famous inventor OF mil
itary ordnance in tha world. already
four times decorated for his services
TO the Emperor.
"'The labor of nine years. he A.
swered with emotion. Nine long Years
of self denial and unremitting study.
But to-nig hit I shall be repaid
a thousand times
We'll, shall we start the ball?"
asked a general, laying his hand on
Won Heckmann's shoulder. But the
inventor found it so hard to master his
emotion that he could only nod his
head. Yet the ball to which the gcn7l
eral alluded was the discharging Of a
fiendish war machine toward an un-
suspecting and harmless city alive with
sleeping people, and the emotion of the
inventor was due to the fact that he had
devised and completed the moset afro
cious engine of death ever conceived