The tools and fixtures used in making Remington breech-loading rifles
for the United States were brought back from Connecticut in 1866, and an
inventive genius named John Rider was set to work, with a staff of the
best mechanics obtainable, to develop this gun still further. He devised
the famous system of a dropping breech block, backed up by the hammer.
Uncle Sam had a great number of muzzle-loading Springfield rifles left
from the Civil War. By the Berdan system, these were turned into
breech-loaders at the Ilion plant, the breech being cut out of the
barrel and a breech-block inserted, swinging upward and forward. Spain
had 10,000 muskets to modernize by the same system, and the breech-block
attachments were made at Ilion.
The Berdan system, with a slight alteration, was the foundation of the
Allen gun, made by the United States government for the army until
superseded by the Krag-Jorgensen.
The repeating rifle now seemed an interesting possibility and large sums
were spent in developing a weapon of this type. It did not prove to have
merit, however.
Then James P. Lee designed the first military rifle with the bolt type
of cartridge chamber, the parent of the military rifle of today. The
model was made at Ilion, but another type of bolt gun, the Keene, seemed
to offer still greater possibilities at the moment, and the plant was
being prepared to manufacture this. The Lee gun was taken up at
Bridgeport, but not made successfully, and finally, as the Keene gun had
not met expectations, falling short of government tests, the Lee type
was brought back to Ilion, tools worked out and manufacture undertaken
in quantities. It afterwards became the basis for the famous British
army rifle, the Lee-Metford.
[Illustration: ACTION TESTING
EXTREME CARE IN TESTING IS NECESSARY TO ACCURACY OF AIM
IN THE FINISHED PRODUCT
_Illustrations by courtesy of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co._]
At this period the plant made many other interesting guns. The Whitmore
double-barrel breech-loading shotgun was designed, and later developed
into the Remington breech-loading shotgun. Eliott hammerless
breech-loading pistols with one, two, four and five barrels, discharged
by a revolving firing pin, were made in large quantities, as well as a
single-barrel Eliott magazine pistol. The Eliott magazine pump rifle was
perfected in Ilion, but afterwards made in New England. Vernier and wind
gauge sights, attachable to any rifle, were made, and novelties like the
“gun cane,” which had the appearance of a walking-stick, but was a
perfect firearm, carried as a protection against robbery.
[Illustration: ASSEMBLING REPEATING SHOTGUNS AND RIFLES]
Making Barrels.
One of the most important features is, of course, the making of barrels.
The machines for drilling and boring are the best that money can buy,
and the operatives the most skilful to be found anywhere. Care at this
stage reduces the necessity for straightening later. Every point is
given the minutest attention. In drilling 22-calibers, for example, the
length of the hole must be from 100 to 125 times the diameter of the
drill.
Improvements have made it possible to drill harder steel than formerly.
This reduces the weight of the gun, and is important to the man who
carries it.
Taking off 2/1000 of an Inch.
The boring is an especially delicate task. In choke-boring your shotgun,
for example, the final reamer took off only 2/1000 of an inch. Think of
such a gossamer thread of metal! But it insures accuracy. No pains can
be too great for that.
This exquisite painstaking will be seen still more in the
barrel-inspection department, to which we will go now. In passing, we
must not forget the grinding shop, where is, perhaps, the finest battery
of grinding machines in the United States; or the polishers running at
the dizzy speed of 1,500 to 1,700 revolutions per minute and making the
inside of the barrel shine like glass. This high polish is important,
for it resists rust and prevents leading.
[Illustration: SHOOTING ROOM OF BALLISTIC DEPARTMENT*
* The bullet breaks a metal tape at the moment of leaving
the muzzle. This time and the time of striking target are electrically
recorded on the Chronograph.]
[Illustration: SOME OF THE SHOOTING TESTS]
[Illustration: CHRONOGRAPH FOR MEASURING VELOCITIES]
[Illustration: WEIGHING BULLETS]
That is the atmosphere of the whole place. Every action has its reason.
There is not an unnecessary motion made by any one, and there is not one
necessary thing omitted, whatever the cost or trouble.
[Illustration: BORING GUN BARRELS
_Courtesy of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co._]
The Making of Ammunition Today.
It is no easy matter to secure a pass to the Bridgeport plant. Its great
advantage over other concerns lies, to a large degree, in the exclusive
machinery that has been developed at so much pains and expense and the
secrets of which are so carefully guarded. In our case, however, there
will be nothing to hinder us from getting a few general impressions,
provided we do not go into mechanical details too closely.
The very size of the great manufactory is impressive--sixteen acres of
floor space, crowded with machinery and resounding with activity. In
building after building, floor above floor, the sight is similar: the
long rows of busy machines, the whirling network of shafts and belts
above, the intent operatives, and the steady clicking of innumerable
parts blended into a softened widespread sound. It seems absolutely
endless; it is a matter of hours to go through the plant. Stop at one of
the machines and see the speed and accuracy with which it turns out its
product; then calculate the entire number of machines and you will begin
to gain a little idea as to what the total output of this vast
institution must be.
[Illustration: PUTTING METAL HEADS ON PAPER SHOT SHELLS]
More than once you will find yourself wondering whether there can be
guns enough in the world, or fingers enough to press their triggers, to
use such a tremendous production of ammunition. But there are, and the
demand is steadily increasing. This old world is a pretty big place
after all.
[Illustration: ASSEMBLING AUTO SHOTGUNS]
[Illustration: EXAMINING PAPER SHELLS]
[Illustration: REPEATING SHOTGUN MACHINING DEPARTMENT]
[Illustration: INSPECTING METALLIC SHELLS]
Handling Deadly Explosives.
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
molds which separate it into the proper sizes for primers. She knows
that in its present moist condition it cannot explode.
Extreme Precautions.
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.
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.
* * * * *
How does an Artesian Well Keep Up Its Supply of Water?
Artesian wells are named after the French Province of Artais, where they
appear to have been first used on an extensive scale.
[Illustration: ARTESIAN WELL (_D_) IN THE LONDON BASIN]
They are perpendicular borings into the ground through which water rises
to the surface of the soil, producing a constant flow or stream. As a
location is chosen where the source of supply is higher than the mouth
of the boring, the water rises to the opening at the top. They are
generally sunk in valley plains and districts where the formation of the
ground is such that that below the surface is bent into basin-shaped
curves. The rain falling on the outcrops of these saturates the whole
porous bed, so that when the bore reaches it the water by hydraulic
pressure rushes up towards the level of the highest portion of the
strata.
The supply is sometimes so abundant as to be used extensively as a
moving power, and in arid regions for fertilizing the ground, to which
purpose artesian springs have been applied from a very remote period.
Thus many artesian wells have been sunk in the Algerian Sahara which
have proved an immense boon to the district. The same has been done in
the arid region of the United States. The water of most of these is
potable, but a few are a little saline, though not to such an extent as
to influence vegetation.
The hollows in which London and Paris lie are both perforated in many
places by borings of this nature. At London they were first sunk only to
the sand, but more recently into the chalk. One of the most celebrated
artesian wells is that of Grenelle near Paris, 1,798 feet deep,
completed in 1841, after eight years’ work. One at Rochefort, France, is
2,765 feet deep; at Columbus, Ohio, 2,775; at Pesth, Hungary, 3,182, and
at St. Louis, Mo., 3,843-1/2. Artesian borings have been made in West
Queensland 4,000 feet deep. At Schladebach, in Prussia, there is one
nearly a mile deep.
As the temperature of water from great depths is invariably higher than
that at the surface, artesian wells have been made to supply warm water
for heating manufactories, greenhouses, hospitals, fishponds, etc. The
petroleum wells of America are of the same technical description. These
wells are now made with larger diameters than formerly, and altogether
their construction has been rendered much more easy in modern times.
Boring in the earth or rock for mining, geologic or engineering purposes
is effected by means of augers, drills or jumpers, sometimes wrought by
hand, but now usually by machinery, driven by steam or frequently by
compressed air.
In ordinary mining practice a bore-hole is usually commenced by digging
a small pit about six feet deep, over which is set up a shear-legs with
pulley, etc. The boring rods are from ten to twenty feet in length,
capable of being jointed together by box and screw, and having a chisel
inserted at the lower end. A lever is employed to raise the bore-rods,
to which a slight twisting motion is given at each stroke, when the rock
at the bottom of the hole is broken by the repeated percussion of the
cutting tool. Various methods are employed to clear out the triturated
rock.
The work is much quickened by the substitution of steam power, water
power, or even horse power for manual labor. Of the many forms of boring
machines now in use may be mentioned the diamond boring machine,
invented by Leschot, a Swiss engineer. In this the cutting tool is of a
tubular form, and receives a uniform rotatory motion, the result being
the production of a cylindrical core from the rock of the same size as
the bore or caliber of the tube. The boring bit is a steel thimble about
four inches in length, having two rows of Brazilian black diamonds
firmly embedded therein, the edges projecting slightly. The diamond
teeth are the only parts which come in contact with the rock, and their
hardness is such that an enormous length can be bored with but little
appreciable wear.
Where do Dates Come From?
Besides the dried dates which we are accustomed to seeing in this
country, they are used extensively by the natives of Northern Africa and
of some countries of Asia.
It consists of an external pericarp, separable into three portions, and
covering a seed which is hard and horny in consequence of the nature of
the albumen in which the embryo plant is buried.
Next to the cocoanut tree, the date is unquestionably the most
interesting and useful of the palm tribe. Its stem shoots up to the
height of fifty or sixty feet without branch or division, and of nearly
the same thickness throughout its length. From the summit it throws out
a magnificent crown of large feather-shaped leaves and a number of
spadices, each of which in the female plant bears a bunch of from 180 to
200 dates, each bunch weighing from twenty to twenty-five pounds.
The fruit is eaten fresh or dried. Cakes of dates pounded and kneaded
together are the food of the Arabs who traverse the deserts. A liquor
resembling wine is made from dates by fermentation.
Persia, Palestine, Arabia and the north of Africa are best adapted for
the culture of the date-tree, and its fruit is in these countries an
important article of food. It is now being introduced into California.