Popular Science Monthly 



369 



Target Practice with the Smaller 

 Coast Defence Guns 



WHEN practic- 

 ing with the 

 smaller land defence 

 guns, the United 

 States army often 

 uses a self-propelling 

 target which is im- 

 provised by the 

 handy men about 

 the fort. The target 

 is carried far out to 

 sea by a launch; 

 there it is set going 

 at a speed of from 

 eight to ten miles an 

 hour, and the guns 

 begin their maltreat- 

 ing of it in true 

 American fashion! 



While these tar- 

 gets are the simplest 

 sort of craft, they 

 afford about the best 

 type of target 

 known. Two pon- 

 toons fourteen feet 

 long and which stick 

 only a few inches 



This Red Cross flag that adorns a New York 

 city department store measures 100x75 feet 



above the water, carry a marking flag. 

 Usually, both pontoons are armored 

 with quarter-inch boiler-plate, which is 

 covered with gray target cloth. One of 

 the pontoons carries the small " 

 motor-boat engine. By 

 means of its rudders, the 

 craft can be made to ma- 

 neuver straight ahead or 

 in a circle. A buoy 

 and cable are attached 

 to the motor so that 

 it can be recovered 

 from the bottom 

 of the harbor 

 should the pon- 

 toon sink. 



The self-propelling target. Though the pontoons 

 are almost invisible, the gunners riddle them 



The Biggest Red Cross Flag Ever— A 

 New York Creation 



ONE of the big 

 New York city 

 department stores 

 has set the pace in 

 Red Cross flags. 

 Across the Fifth 

 Avenue side of the 

 store is a flag 

 seventy-five by one 

 hundred feet; the 

 hundreds of thou- 

 sands who daily go 

 up and down the 

 street never fail to 

 marvel at it. The 

 flag was made in the 

 store. It is ten feet 

 larger than an 

 American flag which 

 formerly occupied 

 the position it now 

 holds. 



Note the con- 

 gested traffic in the 

 street. Fifth Avenue 

 is rapidly becoming 

 the most congested 

 thoroughfare in the 

 world despite its width. Traffic moves five 

 blocks at a time and there are traffic police- 

 men nearly every block for more than 

 a hundred blocks of its length. 



The Complexities Involved in 

 Making Shrapnel 



WERE the average layman able 

 to grasp the staggering complex- 

 ities of chemical and mechanical de- 

 tails involved in the making of a 

 shrapnel shell he would be amazed. 

 For instance, one hundred and seventy 

 gages are required to manufacture the 

 combination time and percussion fuse 

 for three quarter-inch shrapnel. The 

 powder used must have the correct 

 m burning time or the explosion will 

 occur too soon or too late. It is im- 

 possible to obtain two powders with 

 the same burning time, hence the 

 burning time has to be determined 

 on each lot of powder. This formerly 

 required one and one-half hours; now 

 it takes five minutes. Likewise, the 

 time consumed in blending powders 

 has been reduced from sixteen hours 

 to fifteen minutes. 



