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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Tv.ndall's Buonze BELL-MorxiiEi) Gun. 



pletely through four inches and three quarters of compound armor, 

 backed with twentj-four inches of oak, and burst inside the bomb- 

 proof, while in 1897 fused armor-piercing shells containing wet 

 gun cotton were fired from the six-inch quick-firing gun, with a muz- 

 zle velocity of nearly nineteen 

 hundred feet per second, which 

 completely perforated three 

 inches of steel and burst behind 

 the plate. Encouraged by these 

 results, this system was adopted 

 by our "army officials, but, on trial 

 in larger calibers at Sandy Hook, 

 it gave rise to premature explosions, and the tale of disaster reached 

 its climax on April 29, 1899, when Captain Stuart, of the Ordnance 

 Corps, was superintending the loading of a twelve-inch torpedo 

 shell with wet gun cotton by compressing it into the shell, for an 

 explosion resulted which killed four men instantly and fatally 

 wounded two others. Captain Stuart being one of them. 



The history of the attempts made to use nitroglycerin, dyna- 

 mite, explosive gelatin, and explosives of this class as bursting 

 charges for shell fired from service guns is even less satisfactory 

 than that given for gun cotton. It is not surprising, therefore, 

 that inventors should have proposed catapults, slings, rotary wheels, 

 and other means for projecting these powerful agents into the 

 enemy's midst, but the Mefford air gun, as mounted on the United 

 States steamship Vesuvius, and the Sims-Dudley gun, in which a 

 reduced charge of powder is fired 

 in a chamber exterior to the gun 

 proper, were deemed to possess 

 sufficient merit to warrant their 

 trial in the field. These devices 

 were employed in the recent war 

 with Spain, the pneumatic guns 

 on the Vesuvius being used to 

 throw shells containing three hun- 

 dred pounds of gim cotton, while 

 the Sims-Dudley guns were used 

 on land to throw small charges 

 of dynamite or explosive gelatin; 

 but, beyond frightening the enemy by the startling character of 

 their reports, these superficial charges produced no serious effect. 

 There is a widespread niisa})prehenpion in regard to the devastat- 

 ing effect of these high explosives, for when unconfined the effect 

 even of large charges of them upon structures is comparatively 



MiKROR OR Reflector in which to 

 FiuE Oi'N Cotton. 



