12 
LAND & WATER 
December 7, igi6 
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percussion, fuse. They may be, yet again, distinguished 
by their intention, according as they are directly man- 
killing, as shrapnel and common shell, or primarily 
wrecking and battering, such as the naval armour- 
piercing shells. The now indispensable high explosives 
used primarily for wrecking defences are now also em- 
ployed against troops in movement, and kill not merely 
with their scattered metal, ;but by the force of the air 
concussion, pulping the brain (as is related by the siur- 
geons) and, of course, producing every degree of shell- 
shock short of death. War is a brutal business and 
these stark things must be said. 
We will follow through the process of making 
shrapnd. When the shell length has been hollowed, 
and the head has been turned over so as partially 
to close the shell, the men who have carried the work to 
this stage hand over to the women. As you look down 
the shell shop the girUsh figures in the long drill overalls 
definitely predominate. We have heard a great deal 
about dilution, and testimony^ — sincere or perfunctory — 
is paid to the action of the Trades Unions in permitting 
this temporary destruction of their long upheld policy. 
Only those who do not realise what is buried in the history 
of these past eighty years will lightly reckon the sacrifice 
made in the cause of the country. It was not a personal 
sacrifice — that would have been easy enough— but a class 
sacrifice, which is a very different matter, and one which, 
if we are to be candid with ourselves, has as yet no parallel 
in other classes. Obstructions and difficulties there 
have been, no doubt, some more, others less, justifiable ; 
none perhaps quite justifiable in the national emer- 
gency. But this great class sacrifice must not be merely 
remembered as a light and obvious performance of 
simple duty. 
What Women Have Done 
Queer, as well as admirable, results have folbwed 
from the practice of dilution by unskilled girl labour. 
Perhaps certain figures which may or may not be unusual, 
but which are at any rate quite explicit, may 
provide an easily intelligible example. A certain 
shop designed for the estimated output of 4,000 shells per 
week was manned early in the war by such skilled men 
and semi-skilled boys as were available : which is to say 
that they were not the most skilful of skilled men. 
After some months' work, they attained an output of 
600 per week, which they never bettered. When the 
dilution negotiations had been completed, the machines 
were handed over to girls. They soon attained the old 
maximum of 600 per week, and after a few months 
worked up to an average of five thousand, that is a thou- 
sand beyond the calculated average ; this they have main- 
tained. There is no doubt that the recruitment of many 
women of better education and with a more explicitly 
imaginative and patriotic impulse had its effect on this 
result ; but the bare facts throw much light on that 
phenomenon known as limitation of output. 
To get on with our business of shrapnel making. The 
shell length, forged hollow by the mandril and with its 
top lip turned over so as to form a blunt nose with an 
aperture (later to be fitted with fuse-bush and fuse), is 
now ready for machining at the lathe. The shell-to-be 
is fixed in the chuck and revolved, the cutting tool set 
against it and adjusted. The fine steel shaving that 
ripples off from the cutting edge would be more of a 
marvel if one had not seen in the larger work the high- 
speed tools shearing ribbons of metal an inch by half an 
inch with more than the ease of a modeller cutting wet clay. 
The shell, turned accurately to gauge — the inside and 
outside gauges are constantly in use — is trimmed at the 
base and made ready for the base plate. 
Why the Germans want Copper 
But first there is cut near the base a series of grooves 
in a waving curve, jagged at intervals with a stroke of the 
chisel, which is an important preliminary to the fixing 
of the copper band, so essential a portion of every shell. 
The function of this band is, of course, to take easily the 
grooves of the rifling which give that spin to the projectile 
which allows it to keep to its normal trajectory under the 
force of thepropeUant. It is for this copper — for which no 
adequate substitute has yet been found — that the kitchens 
of German Schloss and Gasthaus have been so sedulously 
rifled. The band, a simple ring of copper, is slid over the 
shell and pressed by hydraulic power into the grooves of 
the wave which holds it immovably in position. The 
base plate is an instance of the meticulous scientific care 
that goes to the manufacture of a shell. It has been 
found that when the ingot is rolled into the bar, such 
flaw as there may be, is most hkely to be found in the 
centre. When the sheared length is hollowed under 
the mandril, that flaw may still be perpetuated in the 
centre of the base. It may, in effect, be a "pipe," 
invisible to the naked eye, but capable of allowing pass- 
age of the heated gas of the propellant and so causing 
an explosion in the shell itself. This danger is less 
apparent in shrapnel which does not contain high explosive 
than in any other form of ammunition, but the danger 
cannot be ignored. 
Guarding Against "Prematures" 
Safety is secured by cutting away the centre of the base and 
rivet ting in a base plate of metal of which the grain runs at 
