670 



Popular Science Monthly 



in 



the 



Yankees would poke the natives 

 back to make sure all was serene. 



The Americans rushed the cottas de- 

 fending the trail at daybreak, and found 

 themselves on the edge of a bowl at the 

 mountain top, some four hundred yards 

 across, packed with huts and 

 Moro cottas or forts. Also 

 several hundred enthusiast- 

 ic Moro bandits were pot- 

 ting at the Americans 

 from every part of the 

 crater. 



Presently in the 

 midst of the fitful 

 crackle of the rifle 

 fire, there broke out 

 a sound no Moro 

 had ever heard, the 

 vicious and sustain- 

 ed chatter of the 

 Colt machine gun. 

 From that instant, 

 the Moro fire slack- 

 ened, while the ma- 

 chine gun searched 

 methodically the light 

 bamboo cottas of the 

 Moros, the bullets rip- 

 ping through as fast as 

 spray from a hose. I saw 

 a picture of some of the 

 cottas and trenches taken 

 a few hours later. It was 

 not a pretty picture — 

 particularly in view of the 

 fact that women fought 

 with men, and there had been no chance to 

 pick and choose in the marks for the 

 American guns. 



Even after such an experience as this 

 the American Army had little faith in the 

 machine gun. Even the Russians saw the 

 beautiful qualities of the Gatling and 

 bought more Gatling guns than all other 

 nations put together, to use on the natives 

 of Asia who objected to the Russian 

 colonizing and exploring. When a Turco- 

 man charge started for the Russian 

 lines, the Catlings calmly and methodically 

 spread Turcoman riders and horses all over 

 the vicinity. 



The field gun and the giant howitzer 

 may masquerade as mere engineering ap- 

 pliances for smashing up trenches, the 

 infantry rifle can establish a weak sort of 

 an alibi as being partly a weapon of self- 

 defense in that it can parry an opposing 

 bayonet, but the machine gun is unblush- 



A Moroccan chief explaining the 

 working of a machine gun to 

 some new mystified army recruits 



ingly a frightful machine for killing men. 

 It has not the slightest utility from any 

 other standpoint. 



Although America is notoriously a non- 

 military country, and although the market 

 for man-slaying weapons has always been 

 best abroad, and although 

 the great arsenals for mili- 

 tary weapons were across 

 tiie water, yet it has been 

 America which has 

 evolved this most awful 

 weapon and placed it 

 at the disposal of 

 modern belligerents. 



The greatest man- 

 killing machine on 

 earth, the chattering 

 destroyer of whole 

 battalions, the most 

 formidable defender 

 of the German lines, 

 is not only of Amer- 

 ican design original- 

 ly, but is of American 

 design in its varia- 

 tions as used in the 

 present war. 

 Yet it is undoubtedly 

 true that the equipment 

 of the United States 

 Army contains fewer of 

 these guns than that of 

 any other nation among 

 the great powers. 



A New Sugar Flour from 

 Northern France 



WHILE the brainiest men of Europe 

 are working over the war situation, 

 new geniuses are arising in the ranks of 

 the manufacturers, farmers and ordinary 

 workmen to solve the food supply prob- 

 lems. In Northern France a new flour 

 is being made from sugar beets. It is used 

 for bread and for cattle food, as well as 

 for certain brewing processes. 



The fresh beet pulp is poured into a 

 vat into which currents of warm air are 

 introduced for drying. Then it is passed 

 through a series of gratings which rotate 

 one above another. After this the pulp is 

 delivered into compartments in which the 

 temperature of the air is gradually in- 

 creased to about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 It is then sufficiently free from moisture to 

 be pulverized and used as flour. 



