enormous, should have to resort to foreign manufacturers for the arms
wherewith to fight. Money in such a country, it is often said, can procure
anything, and money in this case was no object. The want of suitable
machinery was the cause of the difficulty. The manufacturers could only
make the articles demanded of them by skilled labour, which is a thing
that must be acquired before it can be hired. Old machines can be put to
extra duty; fresh machines can be readily supplied; but skilled labour is
a fixed capital which cannot be suddenly increased. The result was a
lamentable slowness of production and an extraordinary dearness of
price--the munitions of war in some cases more than doubled in value. It
is calculated that the shells for the Baltic fleet alone, which were
fabricated entirely by private manufacturers, cost upwards of £100,000
more than they would have done had they been made by the new machinery
lately introduced into the Arsenal. A still stronger case, to show the
extraordinary prices which the Government had to pay contractors when the
demand was imperative and supply confined to two or three houses, was that
of the six-pounder diaphragm shells. They were charged by the contractors
at 73_l._ per ton, whilst the very same article is now made in the Royal
Laboratory at 14_l._ 19_s._ 2_d._ per ton. These exorbitant demands and
the rapid drain of the stores led the War Department to consider whether
it would not be better to organize a government establishment on the most
extensive scale, and on the most improved system; and it was ultimately
determined to adopt a plan by which it would be possible to expand or
contract the productive power, according to the exigencies of the service,
by means of machines which could be tended by untutored labourers and
boys. Accordingly, a very large number of the most ingenious machines
were procured from the United States, where the Springfield and Harper
Ferry Arsenals have long been famous for their admirable contrivances to
save human skill; while others were procured from the Continent and at
home by Mr. Anderson, the superintendent of machinery. In a very short
time a powerful factory of the munitions of war sprung into life,
verifying, for the ten-thousandth time, the truth of the proverb that
necessity is the mother of invention, or at least, as in this case, of
improvement.
The introduction of machinery on a large scale put to flight the old
traditions of the Arsenal, and the manufacturing spirit had to be
substituted for the military organization under which the establishment
had been conducted before. Such was the energy and rapidity with which the
old Arsenal reformed itself, that we question if any private factory in
the kingdom is conducted upon a better system than is already at work
there. Within these three years factories have sprung up on every side,
and the whir of wheels, and the measured stroke of the steam-engine, can
now be heard over the whole of its immense area.
The three manufacturing departments into which the Woolwich Arsenal is
divided are as follows:--The Royal Gun Factory, the Royal Carriage
Department, and the Royal Laboratory Department. Through these factories
we will conduct our readers, and endeavour to give them an idea how human
ingenuity has perfected the means to destroy human life. The gun
factories, by right of age, take precedence, although in point of interest
they present the least attractive features to the spectator. The fact
which most strikes him as he threads his way amid the Cyclopean machinery
is the slow, inevitable manner in which the different processes are
carried on. Here you see a large lathe turning the outside of an
eighteen-pounder, revolving as noiselessly and as readily as though it
were only turning a brass candlestick--a fixed tool cutting off its thin
shavings of metal with as much ease as if it were box-wood. In the next
machine a gun is being bored, the drill twisting its way down the fixed
mass, and a dropping shower of bright chips proving how resistlessly its
tooth moves on towards its appointed goal. A third machine cuts off the
"dead head" of a cannon. All guns are cast in the pits in a perpendicular
position, breech downwards, and are made at least one-third longer than
they are intended to be when finished. The reason for this is, that the
superincumbent metal forming the "dead head" of the piece may by its
weight condense the portion below it which is to form the true gun--the
extraordinary pressure of the powder requiring the metal to be extremely
close in order to withstand the strain. Besides these lathes, which do the
more ordinary work of the factory, there are what are termed exceptional
machines, to finish those parts of the gun which the lathe cannot touch,
such as the projecting sight, the trunnions, and that portion of the
barrel which lies between them. No increase has taken place in the size of
the Brass Gun Factory, although, through the energetic action of Colonel
Wilmot, its produce has been doubled since the breaking out of the war:
fourteen pieces of brass ordnance--six, nine, and eighteen pounders--can
be turned out weekly. Brass is used for field-pieces on account of its
resisting power being greater than that of iron. Experiments which have
lately been made, however, tend to show that steel is a far lighter and
better material even than brass for this purpose. A German, named Krupp,
has produced some steel pieces which bear an enormous charge; in fact,
when well made, it is almost impossible to burst them. The Emperor of the
French has already ordered 350 of these guns to be introduced into the
service, and probably we shall have to follow suit.
The fine building[25] recently erected in connection with this department
is intended for the manufacture of iron ordnance, which has hitherto been
produced exclusively by private manufacturers. The experience of the late
war, however, determined the Government to furnish at least a portion of
these stores themselves. A thoroughly reliable gun must be worth any price
that its efficient manufacture demands; for the failing of a single piece
may lose a battle, and bring with it consequences which would be cheaply
averted by a park of artillery cast in gold. In the late campaign we were
prevented from striking a great blow through this very cause alone. At the
bombardment of Sweaborg no less than seventeen of the thirteen-inch
mortars were destroyed through a want of tenacity in the iron of which
they were composed. Many of these ponderous engines split after a few
rounds, and may now be seen on the wharf of the Arsenal cleft in twain as
clean as Tell's apple. Yet these mortars were made by the Carron and Low
Moor Companies, the most celebrated private manufacturers of such articles
in England. Had they stood the strain, we should have utterly destroyed
the fortifications of this stronghold, instead of burning a few sheds,
which made a great blaze without doing much mischief; and had we possessed
a sufficient number of these formidable engines, the destruction of
Cronstadt and Sevastopol would only have formed the work of a few days.
Though ours is a land both of iron and manufactures, our guns are of
inferior quality to those of other nations. The cannon captured at
Sevastopol are of better iron than the cannon we brought against them.
Several thousand tons weight of the guns dismounted from Cronstadt, in
order to make way for pieces of heavier calibre, were bought, we
understand, the other day by an English firm with the intention of
converting them into cranks and boilers, which require the very best
material. The Americans insist upon a tenacity of cast-iron for their
ordnance equal to a pressure of 34,000 lbs. on the square inch, and
sometimes obtain it equal to 45,000 lbs., whilst we, the greatest
manufacturers of iron in the world, have hitherto seldom obtained it of a
strength equal to 20,000 lbs. This great difficiency Government hope to
remedy by the institution of a series of experiments on all classes of
iron both foreign and indigenous. There is a curious machine in the Gun
Factory specially invented for the purpose of testing the tenacity of each
sample, its capacity of withstanding compression, its transverse
strength, and its power of resisting torsion. It is curious to see this
iron-limbed Samson wrestling with mighty bars of metal, and twisting and
tearing them across the grain like bits of stick. The fractured remnants
of the specimens and of the guns rent in the testing process in the
Marshes and at Shoeburyness are collected in a museum, the history of each
specimen being minutely given. Thus a curious and instructive record is
gradually being acquired, which will prove of infinite use in the
manufacture of heavy ordnance. It has been already ascertained that guns
are universally strengthened by having wrought iron rings put round
them--a fact which was discovered during the course of experiments with
the heavy cannon bored with an oval rifle to receive the Lancaster shell.
Several of them having burst at the muzzle, this simple expedient was
tried, and the guns so girded now bear the most extraordinary charges
without flinching.
The new building for casting, boring, and finishing iron guns, is both
externally and internally the most imposing-looking of all the structures
erected to meet the exigencies of the Crimean war. These spacious
factories present more the appearance of first-class railway termini than
of ordinary workshops. They are lighted with what are termed saw-roof
lights, having a northern aspect; for the Vulcans who can work all day in
the burning blaze of furnaces do not, it appears, like to be distracted
with the confusing rays of the sun! The number of turning, boring,
finishing, planing, shaping, drilling, slotting, and punching machines
that revolve, thump, and slide here in ponderous grandeur is prodigious,
and there can be very little doubt that it will be the most perfect and
powerful factory in the world of its kind. Travelling-cranes, which run
upon railways poised in air overhead, command every inch of the factories,
so that cannon of the heaviest calibre for both land and sea
service--98-pounders weighing many tons can be slung from machine to
machine with the greatest ease. When the machinery is completed, the
foundry will be capable of turning out ten guns of the largest size per
week.
The most interesting portion of the gun department is the factory devoted
to the construction of Lancaster shells. This odd-looking missile has a
form very similar to a champagne bottle, and, unlike the ordinary shell,
is made out of a single sheet of wrought iron. The slab of metal having
been welded into a cylindrical form, is submitted to an ingenious lathe,
which, acting upon it simultaneously with a dozen different tools inside
and out, speedily reduces it to a given weight and a perfectly uniform
thickness. The cylinder, about eighteen inches in length and ten in
diameter, is then made red hot, and whilst in this state is placed in the
grip of a powerful machine, which by a series of blows, equally
distributed over every part, converts it into the likeness of a French
bottle in less than five minutes, without the slightest sign of crumpling
in any portion of the surface. The operation can only be compared to the
manner in which a potter shapes a vessel upon the wheel. No less than
forty machines are employed on this special manufacture, and upwards of a
hundred shells can be turned out daily. The expense incurred in producing
with extreme accuracy and speed these curious missiles for the first
rifled gun adopted by the service, is an earnest of the determination of
the authorities to carry the manufacture of artillery to the same
perfection of finish as their small arms. Lancaster guns will in all
probability play a very important part in the next war, if war there
should ever unhappily be, as those in use in the Crimea made most splendid
practice, firing with nearly the accuracy of a rifle, and attaining a
range of 5,000 yards, or very nearly three miles. As these shells cost
about 25_s._ each, the expense of "passing the bottle" to the enemy is
rather a serious affair.
By far the largest department of the Royal Arsenal is devoted to the
construction of carriages and packing-cases for moving artillery, baggage,
and the various munitions of war. At the present moment the carriage
department employs no less than three thousand hands, together with three
hundred machines, moved by twenty-three steam-engines, which do the work
of an additional twelve thousand men! The bulky nature of the material
dealt with, and the store-houses required for stowing it away, together
with the numerous workshops called into existence by the Crimean war,
have caused this department to burst its old bounds and to invade 250
acres of the adjoining marsh--the area of the workshops alone covering
255,152 superficial feet, and the entire ground occupied being no less
than 1,445,440 feet. This immense amount of elbow room has enabled Colonel
Tulloch, the superintendent of the department, to systematize the
manufacture, and cause the timber to pass along in one unbroken progress
from the time when it is landed upon the wharf to the time when the
finished articles are delivered over to the storekeeper. If we follow this
stream from stage to stage, we shall catch a flying view of the operations
of this department, whose province it is to provide package and carriage
for the British army at home and abroad.
The timber which forms the principal raw material employed is brought by
ships to the mouth of the canal which runs along the eastern side of the
Arsenal; here it is transferred to lighters which convey it some distance
inland to the quay in the immediate neighbourhood of the timber field. By
means of powerful derrick cranes, which can make a long or a short arm at
pleasure, it is next unloaded and swung upon the trucks of the railway
which ramifies through every portion of the premises, and forms the means
of communication between its different points. The trucks, when full,
immediately start with their burthen for the contiguous timber field, a
square space covering 20 acres. Here the huge logs are deposited in long
lines, which extend from one end of the field to the other, having
roadways between them laid with rails. Over each line or row of timber
strides a powerful travelling crane which, with a slight impulse given by
one man, is made to traverse from end to end of the row, depositing or
taking up in its way logs of oak or teak of many tons weight as easily as
Gulliver could have picked up the Lilliputians he bestrode. Before the
introduction of this powerful machinery, from fifty to one hundred pairs
of horses were employed in this department alone, all of which are now
dispensed with, and a saving effected of 6,000_l._ a-year.
The usual store in the timber-field amounts to 60,000 loads in various
stages of seasoning. The varieties of climate in which the British army
has to serve are so many, that foreign woods have been introduced to
supply the place of oak, which cannot be found in quantities equal to the
demand. Thus we find in the timber-field sabicu, a dense East-Indian wood
which is used for the heavy blocks of gun carriages; pedouk, from the same
country, which is employed for a similar purpose; and iron bark, an
Australian wood. Of English timber, such as ash, elm, and beech, there is
a very large store. What is called wheel timber, on the soundness and
proper adaptation of which depends the safety of the artillery and
transport service, is entirely composed of the most graceful trees of our
woodlands; the spokes being made of oak, the naves of elm, the felloes or
rims of ash. Beech is also largely used for the fuses of shells and the
woodwork of saddles. When any particular logs are required, they are
selected by the timber-master, picked up by the travelling crane, hoisted
into the railway truck, and conveyed at once to the saw-mills close at
hand. On the threshold of the largest mill the logs meet with a grim
reception from an immense circular saw 66 inches in diameter, which at
once attacks the huge log and separates it as expeditiously as your
Eastern soldier divides with his scimitar a floating handkerchief. This
formidable instrument traverses a space of 30 feet, and is thus enabled to
fix its teeth upon the log at whatever part of the entrance it may chance
to lie. This transverse section performed, the divided portions are drawn
up by machinery into the saw-frames, the largest of which is capable of
receiving a log 4 feet square. Once within the mill's maw, as many saws
are put in as are necessary to divide the wood into slabs of the required
thickness, and a few minutes suffice to reduce it to planks. From the
mills the timber is removed again upon the railroad to the seasoning shed,
which covers 4 acres of ground. Here it is allowed to remain for years, so
stacked that the air fairly circulates through every portion of the
immense mass. The seasoning shed is to the timber master what his
wine-cellar is to a _bon vivant_. Here he treasures his bins of nine years
old oak as though it were wine of a famous vintage. This he keeps as
carefully as a young whist-player keeps his best trumps to the end of the
game, but with far more judgment, for old oak is precious beyond price,
and cannot be got for love or money at a moment's notice. In the dim
shadow of this monster store are also piled the completed articles of
land-transport that improve by age. That perpendicular wall of finished
woodwork contains the bodies of a thousand carriages which were prepared
to remove the British army from the pleateau of Sevastopol in anticipation
of an inland campaign; the round towers at the corners are their wheels
built up and left to season. Upon the thorough preparation of this part of
the carriage its safety depends. The wheels of omnibuses are always
allowed to remain two years before they are used, and by permitting them
this grace they behave well when at work, generally running over 43,000
miles of ground before they are worn out. The wheels of gun-carriages
require to be even better prepared and seasoned, as they have to bear the
weight of enormous guns, and have often to run over the roughest ground,
without being in any way relieved from sudden shocks by springs.
Upon this store of mellow wood the different factories draw; and the
railway which traverses every portion of it speedily conveys the raw
material to the benches of the workmen. As the visitor passes up the main
avenues of these splendid shops he is bewildered with the activity of the
swarms of artizans, the whirling of shafting, and the grating sounds of
circular saws. Clouds of sawdust are flying about, and in a moment cover
the intruder from head to foot. The immense amount of work sometimes
required to be performed at a brief notice has necessitated the
introduction of machinery into this branch of handicraft, which heretofore
was entirely carried on by manual labour. Let us take the ammunition and
powder cases for instance; these have to be provided by the hundred
thousand in time of war, and accordingly we find machinery employed in
every direction to shorten the work. Circular saws cut the planks into the
required size to form the sides and tops and bottoms of the cases; as
these issue from the different machines, they are conveyed away upon a
circular band of canvas, placed at right angles, to a broader band which
runs from one end of the factory to the other: down this band, as on a
broad stream, the various pieces sail until they reach the receptacle,
from which they are again conveyed to the machinery which is to put them
together. Here the drilling, mortising, and dowelling processes are
carried on by wholesale with an exactitude and speed which would astonish
the joiner of the old school. Upwards of a thousand ammunition boxes
formed of cedar, for repelling the wood-eating white ants of the East, are
now being prepared daily for the use of the Indian army. The powder-boxes
for the navy are made of a hexagonal form, to enable them to fit into the
ship's hold like cells of honeycomb. They are carefully lined either with
pewter or copper, and when filled are hermetically sealed with wax. The
limber-boxes for the field artillery are also made here in large
quantities. These receptacles are of a far more elaborate character than
the powder-cases, as they are fitted to take all the stores requisite for
immediate action, which are stowed away in their different compartments,
as neatly as the articles in a gentleman's dressing-case. The common
cartridge barrels are shaped out of the solid wood almost as fast as you
can look. One machine cuts the oak into staves, curved to the right form;
another cuts the edges, so that they may fit in a circle; a fourth turns
the head; a fifth receives the staves, which are placed by the attendant
on end in the form of a barrel, within the grip of a hydraulic press,
claps a hoop on the top and bottom, and with one squeeze completes the
operation. By such appliances a piece of solid oak plank is converted
within five minutes into a finished barrel. The total produce of
carefully-prepared powder-cases during the financial year 1856 was 25,331,
and of boxes for ammunition, shell, &c., no less than 287,171. How many
barrels can be made at a pinch we do not know, for the machinery is only
just put up, but the number must be enormous, and when the visitor
witnesses the nimble fingers of machinery galloping over the work, he
wonders how the business was ever got through in the old time of the
chisel, gouge, hammer, and plane.
In the shops devoted to the manufacture of the gun-carriages and trucks
for the land and sea service, skilled artisans are employed, except in the
wheel department. The vast strength requisite to support and withstand the
recoil of 56, 64, and 98-pounders, necessitates the most solid
construction and the best workmanship. Some of these platforms for
traversing cannon, made of teak, and bolted and finished at the ends with
bright copper bands, look like handsome pieces of furniture rather than
ship's gun-carriages. Compared with these ponderous articles, the light
constructions fitted for the field-artillery seem like children's
playthings. Here they may be met with in every variety and in every stage
of progress, so substantially put together that the marvel is that they
ever wear out. The sort of succession of earthquakes, however, to which
they are subjected in a campaign tells even upon those solid joints, and
but few of the gun-carriages employed in the Crimea, although new when
they went out, returned fit for further service.
The wheel department is one of the most interesting sights in the Arsenal.
Here the most ingenious machinery has been brought together to insure
sound and speedy production. Formerly the wheels were made entirely by
hand; now they are turned out without the aid of a single skilled
wheelwright. What is called the copying process, produces the nave and
spokes of the wheel, three or four of which are seen working side by side,
and the whole batch under the care of only one man. The circular rim of
the wheel, or felloe, is cut out of the solid block by an ingenious
ribbon-saw, imported from France. This saw is merely a narrow band of
steel, toothed on one edge and running over a wheel like an ordinary
leathern band attached to shafting. The exquisite manner in which it
fashions the most intricate patterns from thick slabs of wood is really
surprising. The felloes, after being thus roughly formed, are stacked to
season in a shed by themselves, where they are piled one upon the other in
vast pillars, down vistas of which the visitor passes, full of amazement
at their number. There are at present in store some sixty thousand of
these felloes and an equal number of naves, with their due complement of
spokes.
As wheels are required, their component parts are brought to the shop,
finished and mortised by machinery, and then lightly adjusted to each
other. They are immediately placed within the grip of six hydraulic
presses, which are so arranged as to thrust towards a common centre.
Directly the wheel is adjusted within them, you hear the hiss of the
resistless engines, whose motive power is only a few pints of water; the
solid timbers groan, the joints painfully accommodate themselves to each
other, and in less time than the process takes to describe, the wheel is
lifted out solidly jointed, and only awaiting the tire to travel at once
under its superincumbent gun. The wheels of gun, limber, and ammunition
carriages are all made of exactly the same size, in order that they may be
interchangeable in case of accident.