OCTOBER 81 



and extensive for private control. At old Fort 

 Armstrong a few cannon and mortars still frown 

 down the river. We visited the Arsenal. Here 

 are perhaps a dozen very large, bare, forbidding 

 looldng buildings, filled with machinery, ammuni- 

 tion, and other military equipment. In the yard 

 are hundreds of cannon, most of them of recent 

 make and intended for service, but some of them 

 trophies of the Revolutionary, Mexican, and Civil 

 wars. Some are decorated with coats-of-arms, and 

 bear inscriptions in English, French, or other for- 

 eign language. The cannon were all unmounted, 

 and so appeared strangely to one whose chief ideas 

 of big guns were gained from Fourth of July sa- 

 luting specimens, or from pictures in books. Near 

 at hand are pyramids of cannon balls and shells, 

 packed with mathematical precision. Just now 

 there are only some sixty men at work in the ar- 

 senal shops, but one is told that in emergency the 

 plant could equip about 2,500 fighting men a day. 

 The present force is engaged in making harnesses, 

 stoves, etc., for other arsenals and for the army 

 posts. To the peaceful common citizen the whole 

 place seemed a rather drowsy one, and the busi- 

 ness one involving wasteful expense, but the loyal 

 officer who conducted us about the grounds de- 

 clared if the government entered into war within 

 a century it would pay to maintain this arsenal. 

 We listened one dav to an instructive lecture bv 



