~HOW AMMUNITION IS MADE~
One of the first shocks you get when you start your visit through a
cartridge factory is the matter-of-fact way in which the operatives,
girls in many cases, handle the most terrible compounds. We stop, for
example, where they are making primers to go in the head of your loaded
shell, in order that it may not miss fire when the bunch of quail
whirrs suddenly into the air from the sheltering grasses. That grayish
pasty mass is wet fulminate of mercury. Suppose it should dry a trifle
too rapidly. It would be the last thing you ever did suppose, for there
is force enough in that double handful to blow its surroundings into
fragments. You edge away a little, and no wonder, but the girl who
handles it shows no fear as she deftly but carefully presses it into
moulds which separate it into the proper sizes for primers. She knows
that in its present moist condition it cannot explode.
[Illustration: INSPECTING METALLIC SHELLS]
[Illustration: EXAMINING PAPER SHELLS]
[Illustration: WEIGHING BULLETS]
Or, perhaps, we may be watching one of the many loading machines.
There is a certain suggestiveness in the way the machines are separated
by partitions. The man in charge takes a small carrier of powder from a
case in the outside wall and shuts the door, then carefully empties it
into the reservoir of his machine, and watches alertly while it packs
the proper portions into the waiting shells. He looks like a careful
man, and needs to be. You do not stand too close.
[Illustration: SHOOTING ROOM OF BALLISTICS DEPARTMENT]
[Illustration: CHRONOGRAPH FOR MEASURING]
The empty carrier then passes through a little door at the side of the
building, and drops into the yawning mouth of an automatic tube. In the
twinkling of an eye it appears in front of the operator in one of the
distributing stations, where it is refilled, and returned to its proper
loading machine, in order to keep the machine going at a perfectly
uniform rate; while at the same time it allows but a minimum amount
of powder to remain in the building at any moment. Each machine has
but just sufficient powder in its hopper to run until a new supply can
reach it. Greater precaution than this cannot be imagined, illustrating
as it does that no effort has been spared to protect the lives of the
operators.
[Illustration: PUTTING METAL HEADS ON PAPER SHOT SHELLS]
It is remarkable that, in an output of something like four million per
day, every cartridge is perfect.
Such things are not accidental. The secret is, inspection.
~TESTING MATERIALS AND PRODUCTS~
Let us see what that means. It means laboratory tests to start with.
Here are brought many samples of the body paper, wad paper, metals,
waterproofing mixture, fulminate of mercury, sulphur, chlorate of
potash, antimony sulphide, powder, wax, and other ingredients, and
even the operating materials such as coal, grease, oil, and soaps.
In the laboratory we see expert chemists and metallurgists with
their test-tubes, scales, Bunsen burners, retorts, tensile machines,
microscopes, and other scientific looking apparatus, busily hunting
for defects.
For example, one marker is examining a supply of cupro-nickel, such as
is used in jacketing certain bullets. A corner of each strip is first
bent over at right angles, then back in the other direction until it
is doubled, then straightened. It does not show the slightest sign of
breaking or cracking, in spite of the severe treatment, therefore it is
perfect. Let but the least flaw appear, and the shipment is rejected.
[Illustration: WHAT A SHOT TOWER LOOKS LIKE