THE SPANISH GUNFACTORY AND ARSENAL OF TRUBIA. 
489 
Ah important feature is tlie school for apprentices which has now 
55 pupils, mostly sons of the employes in the factory, who undergo a 
four years' course of study in mathematics, mechanics, metallurgy, 
drawing machinery from nature, &c. They work as fitters in the 
shops. In the last 12 years 158 apprentices have passed through suc¬ 
cessfully. 
The total Horse Power employed in the factory is 830. 
The arrangements for the proof of guns require special mention. 
Firing is generally directed against the proof-butts or tunnel filled with 
sand to receive the projectiles, 161 feet deep. Platforms, railroad, and 
a Griison 60-ton crane are employed for placing the ordnance in 
position; a 50-ton gun with its mounting can be brought from the 
workshops and placed in readiness for firing in 3 to 4 hours. Le 
Boulenge-Brequet chronographs are installed at a short distance off 
and communicate with the battery by a permanently laid telephone. 
Kecoil is measured by the Sebert velocimeter. 
When high-angle fire has to be employed the piece is transported to 
the Santa Catalina battery at Gijon (the neighbouring seaport). 
In a joostscriptum the author says that in consequence of some doubts 
on the part of the press he finds it necessary to make a few further 
explanations more especially as to the manufacture of steel at Trubia. 
The factory has a Siemen’s 12-ton furnace for fusing the metal and 
an hydraulic press of 1200 tons to forge it : there are also 20 vertical 
blast furnaces and a 6-ton steam hammer. The Siemen's process is 
found much more economical than the crucible method. For the heavy 
guns which are of cast-iron tubed with steel the tubes are now made 
in Trubia by the Siemen's furnace instead of being purchased abroad. 
But for heavy guns entirely of steel, the manufacture of which lies out¬ 
side the limits of the Siemen's furnace, recourse must be had to foreign 
industries and the trade, as is generally done in other countries. 
Unfortunately, in Spain there is as yet no firm capable of turning out 
steel tubes for heavy ordnance, nor as a rule, forged steel in large 
masses, hence she must have recourse to France and England in cases 
of necessity. Though the author does not think that the state should 
undertake the manufacture of steel on a large scale considering the 
smallness of the supply of war material, still he laments that in a town 
like Bilbao, for example, where minerals of superior quality, and iron 
rich in manganese and free from phosphorous and sulphur abound, 
which are well suited for obtaining steel from, a manufactory for this 
important industry has not as yet been established; consequently the 
Spanish government is forced to go outside their own country for tubes, 
armour-plates, shafts for screws of steamers and, generally speaking, 
for heavy guns. 
Had Spain but such advantages, Trubia could turn out ordnance of 
any calibre, however large, in addition to being able to deal with the 
numerous problems which the manufacture of artillery entails, and 
which are so successfully solved by such renowned firms as Armstrong, 
Krupp, Canet, &c. 
