EE So Bellefonte, Pa., February 14, 1908, For His Confederate. WONDERFUL BATTERY WORK. Amazing Results Achieved by Our Coast Defense Experts and the Be- wildering Array of Apparatus by Which Accuracy of Fire Is Attained. The war department makes little noise about the condition of the coast defenses. Such activity as one sees about the fortifications reveals little. The sun spreads a flood of gold upon the soft, grassy covering of their siop- ing sides, and somehow one does not think of them as impregnable for- tresses. Such guns as one sees look innocuous enough. They do not seem as formidable as one imagines they ought to look. In fact, however, these fortresses are mailed fists with a vel- vet covering. Army officers assert | that no hostile war vessel could reach | the upper bay of New York harbor if it could be seen. It would be annihi- lated before it reached the Narrows. | Gunnery has shared in the modern tendency to specialize and to become highly scientific in its practice. Gun- ners are now specialists. A battery is | a highly organized mechanism, work- | ing almost automatically. In the old | days the men who fired the guns used | to see what they fired at. Today, with | guns capable of throwing a thousand | pound shell as far as the eye can see | on a clear day, the men who discharge the guns no longer necessarily see the: object which is to be struck by the giant hail they release. Until the shot | is fired the gun itself cannot be seen | above the parapet. Hitting the target has become al- most an exact science. ‘By mechanical means the striking of a target has be- | come so nearly an infallibility that the | tugs which tow the floating targets oe) separated from them by only 600 feet! of line. The men upon the tugs have no move expectation of being struck than if they were a mile behind the | gun. They never have been struck, al-' though the different batteries have! frequent practice. The song of the! shel! to the men on the tug is not like | the song of the Lorelei, for death does | i not follow in its wake. To be sure, | like motoring. one has to become ac-' customed to face what seems like im- | pending death. Faith in the gunner, | as in the chauffeur, and in the gun, as in the wotor car, is an essential. What is done by the guns in some of our forts is illustrated by what has recently been accomplished at two of the forts along the Atlantic coast. At Boston a target four and a half miles from the fort and moving along the horizon at the rate of five miles an hour was struck by every shot fired from u ten inch battery in less than four minutes, the vpumber of shots being six. The following day a bat- tery of twelve inch guns performed the same feat, bunching the shots more closely than did the ten inch guns. The shots of both batteries were 80 close together at the target that they might have been inclosed in a rectangle 10 by 20 feet. Battery Parrott, at Fort Monroe, recently was called upon to fire at al 8 few hundreds of pounds of powder moving target an unknown distance away Actually it was about three and | one-huif miles away. Pyramidal in| shape. it looked as it moved across the | water about as a leg o' mutton sail on a skiff would appear at a distance of | four miles. Every shot was a hit, and | the fourth and last destroyed the tar- get. The entire round was fired in 1 minute 9 seconds. One of the firing tests Is called “fire command.” In this test the gunners are expected to change the fire from | one target to another of the three in the string as directed and hit it with- | out changing the speed of the fire. The targets are supposed to represent the vitals of a warship. This mythical vessel is considered to have a free- board. or height out of water, of twen- ty-four feet. In estimating the hits, the basis is that of a representative battleship. A shot which does not ac- tually hit the target, but which would have pierced a vessel had it been where the target was, is counted a hit. Officers on the tug towing the targets work out the score by means of the “pange rake.” This is an implement which looks like a garden rake with a short handle. The spaces between the teeth each represent a given number of yards. When a shot strikes the offi- cers sight along the handle and note how many spaces to the right or left of the center the shot hit. A gunner of the old school would lations instantaneously. There are two | the gun in direction and elevation re- turn gray if he had suddenly to adapt himself to the new methods in the face of the enemy. Hair line tele- scopes, surveying Instruments, barom- eters, thermometers, anemometers, weather vanes, tide gauges and stop watches are required to secure the requisite results. The accuracy of the fire is obtained only by taking into consideration such details as the curva- ture of the earth, the speed of the tar- get or the hostile warship, the range jor distance of the object from the gun, the pressure or density of the air, the speed and direction of the wind, the temperature and age of the powder {when placed In the gun, the height of #he tide at the moment of firing the hot and the “drift” of the projectile. here can be no guesswork in securing 1 artistic results as making hits auccessive shots, The effect of ail of these Laclors In combination under all possible con- ditions bas been worked out by experi- ‘ments and computations and the re- t otilized In devising apparatus h hich antomntically registers the in- - Ta lie — i foiwation which is essential at such speed that talf a dozen half ton shots can be thrown into a ship from a sin- gle battery in the space of less than four minutes. The “drift” of the shot is the distance to the right which a revolving projectile from a rifled gun will go in the course of a given dis tance. The range and the point where a vessel will be at the moment a shot could reach it are reckoned in actual practice at least once in every twenty | seconds. The establishment of twenty seconds as the interval when a fresh survey shall be taken is based upon the fact that no boat could change its speed or its course sufficiently in that space of time to affect the probability of a shot hitting it. The gunner may have all the knowl- edge of what to do when a hostile ship | appears and know exactly what his | gun will do under any given condition, | but there are two things which cannot | be learned until the exact moment | when the gun is to be fired. One is the | direction in which the gun is to be] pointed, and the other is the amount of elevation or depression which must be given the muzzle in order to have! the shot reach the exact spot where | the vessel will be when the shot may | be expected to reach there. Attached to! the carriage of the gun and high enough so that the gunner can look through it over the parapet is a tele- scope with hair lines crossing the opening at right angles to each other. The telescope is set so that it can be moved from the left to the right by means of a thumbscrew. This permits right and left correc- tions to be made in sighting the gun after the range has been determined. The amount of elevation which is nec- essary in order to make the shot “car- ry” to the exact spot where the enemy will be is “set off” at the gun by means of another mechanism. At other points in the fort are heavily built towers containing the instruments for secur- ing the range and the apparatus for automatically working out the ecalcu- of these instruments at a known dis- tance apart. A hostile warship is seen in the offing. The two surveying instruments are turned upon it from their respec- tive angles, while the gunner takes his place at the telescope attached to the gun. Others are busily engaged in loading the gun, The man at the tele- scope shortly receives from the towers directions how to set his sight, while the other men charged with “laying” ceive the data by which they make “gettings” at the gun. They swing the gun around until the object which is to be struck appears in the center of the hair line eyepiece of the telescope and set the mechanism which will insure the proper elevation when the gun | rises from its cradle. Suddenly the gun | springs up. The muzzle shows over | the parapet. A cloud of smoke bursts | forth, and the men who have not taken | the precaution to rise on their toes and open their mouths receive a shock that | disturbs their equilibrium and threat- | ens their eardrums. The gun settles | back in its place once more. Soon | there is ocular evidence that the shot | and the hostile ship five miles away | have met. to the damage of the war ‘ ship. The decks amidships are seen | to open and men run back and forth. | Steam vells the hull, for steam pipes have been pierced. Scientific gunnery | bas conquered, and at the expense of and steel a vessel which cost $2,000,000 or $3,000,000 has been incapacitated.— New York Tribune. A Change of Manners. We hardly appreciate the rapld trans- formation of human nature on its high- est levels within a single generation. In this consideration “the highest lev- els” are those attained by the great middle class, who constitute the main audience for the best literature. At least this is the case in America. Thackeray in his lectures on English humorists was addressing such a class in England. and in his lecture on Steele. contrasting the Victorian with the Queen Anne era, he said. “You could no more suffer in a British draw- ing room under the reign of Queen Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady of Queen Anne's time, or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive an ancient Briton.” The lec- turer had just before referred to Ty- burn and remarked that a great city had grown over the old meadows. “Were a man brought to die there now the windows would be closed and the inhabitants keep their houses in sick- ening horror. A hundred years ago people crowded to see this last act of a highwayman's life and make jokes on it” —H. M. Alden in Harper's Mag- azine. The Unlettered Learned. Crudity of diction is not always in- dicative of crudity of thought. The latter has been longer in the world than language, for the primeval savage was not without the elements of mind when gestures and grunts were his sole means of expression. To rebel is as human as to err, and he who defies grammar is not necessarily a fool. How often we hear it said, "Oh, he's an uneducated man,” and so pay no se- rious attention to what the ‘“‘unfortu- nate” may have to say. It may happen that we suffer more than he does by such assumed superiority. The round of the seasons can effect as much as a college curriculum to an open eyed man, not in the same direction, not with equal artistic finish, but a fool is he who sets down the untutored stu- dent of the outdoor world as little bet- ter than a fool. By syntax and proso- dy we cannot solve (he problem of an oak tree or that of the minnow In the brook that flows past its gnarly roots. Greek philosophy does not explain the color of a flower nor Roman sophistry why birds build nests.—Lippincott's. AN ALLIGATOR'S TAIL Yhe Muscles of This Wonderful Organ Are Like Springs of Steel. In whales the tail is set transversely justead of vertically. The reason for this is concealed In long ages of evolu- tion. Fishes have always been as they are now, aquatic, but the ancestors of whales and dolphins lived on dry land, where they crawled about on four good feet. When for some reason these crea- tures of old took to the water they probably did not plunge at once into the open ocean, where their descend- ants now live, but waded and paddled along in the shallows and marshes of the shore. Here a vertical tail wouid certainly be in the way, while a hori- zontal one might be used advanta- geously. We must not forget also that | whales breathe air as we do and that | it is more necessary for them to shoot | quickly up from the dark ocean depths to the surface than to turn, fishlike, from side to side. The sting ray and certain other fish- | es have a sharp, poisonous spine in the tail with which they can inflict a se- | vere wound, but in the case of the al- | ligator it is by sheer brute force that the tail is useful for defense. The muscles of this organ are like springs of steel. The great saurian lles asleep fn the sun, seeming more dead than | alive, but if a half dozen men should | seize its tail with all their strength, with one terrible flick the alligator could scatter them, breaking legs and | arins as if they were straws and hurl- ing the men far to each side. In Mexico | once grasped a three foot iguana by the tail, and 1 bad my strength tested to the utmost to hold on for a single minute. Then, without warning, the great lizard went one way and 1 the other. His tall had parted company in the middle, and I had nine inches of it left in my hand. Instead of being fatal to these iguanas, such an occurrence is not infrequent and is of the utmost value to them in saving their lives. When alarmed their first act is to | dive for their holes, but when an eagle is making the attack the swiftness of | its flight sometimes intercepts the liz | ard, and the bird of prey seizes the long tail which is the last visible part I of the iguana. After a brief struggle | the eagle flies away with the scaly, | bony tail tip. which must afford but slight gustatory satisfaction, while the iguana seeks the deepest part of its | burrow. The short muscles soon close | the wound, and in a surprisingly short | time a new tail shoots forth and grows | 40 a goodly length, ready If need be | to be sacrificed in turn. Sometimes | two tails grow out from the old tall stump—surely a superfluity of bless- ings. A weak spot in each tail bone is | the cause of the breaking. Thus we | see that the tail of the iguana is in- | deed an interesting one.—C. William | Beebe in Outing Magazine. This Time the Lawyer Scored. A lawyer appeared before one of the New York city boards asking that damages be awarded to certain clients because of a change of grade in their street. When he had completed his ar- gument the president said: “Mr. Blank, you ought to know better than to take up the time of this board in this man- ner. You are too good a lawyer not to allow that on your own presentation of facts these people have not the shadow of a legal claim against the city.” “Your remarks are fully justi- fled, Mr. President,” said Mr. Blank. “1 not only expected them, but you have done me a favor by making them. There are times when a lawyer is so | pushed by his clients who seem to know more about the law than he does that the only thing he can do is to let them come up against it them- selves. They probably know as much about it now as I did before. I thank you for your attention.” With that he took up his books and left the room, followed by a half dozen crestfallen clients. The Honest Chinaman. You soon learn in China that you ean trust a Chinaman to carry through anything he agrees to do for you. When I reached T’al Yuanfu I handed my interpreter a Chinese draft for $200 (Mexican), payable to bearer, and told him to go to the bank and bring back the money. | had known John a little over a week, yet any one who knows China will understand that 1 was run- ning no appreciable risk. The Individ- ual Chinaman is simply a part of a family, the family is part of a neigh- borhood, the neighborhood is part of a village or district, and so on. If John had disappeared with my money after cashing the draft and had afterward been caught, punishment would have been swift and severe. Very likely he would have lost his head. If the au- thorities had been unable to find John, they would have punished his family. Punishment would surely have fallen on somebody.—Samuel Merwin in Sue cess Magazine. What a Knot ls. Probably there is no nautical term more frequently used than the word “knot.” The word is synonymous with the nautical mile, or 6,080.27 feet, while, as every one knows, the geo- graphical mile Is 5280 feet. This would make the knot equal to 1.15 of geopraphical miles, and therefore, in order to compare the speed of a boat expressed in knots with a rail- road train, it is necessary to multiply the speed in knots by 1.15. Another point to be remembered is that speed means a distance traveled in unit time, sv when one speaks of a boat having 1 speed of 20 knots It Is not necessary sr proper to add per bour, as the word Itself when employed as a unit of speed signifies nautical miles per hour, A crulser that makes 21 knots travels 24 15 geographical miles per hour. WINTER BUTTERFLIES. A Hardy Brood For Which Frost and Snow Possess No Terrors. Coming in one day from a walk in a heavy snowstorm, I dropped upon the evening table some triangular brown- ish bits that looked at first sight like tiakes of dried bark. “What are those—chips?’ “No. Butterflies.” Such a reply with a foot ef snow on the ground and great probability of a foot more before morning was accept- ed as a pleasantry and not to be taken seriously. The idea of catching but- terflies in a snowstorm seemed too “fishy" for serious consideration. On the approach of winter most of the butterflies, those delicate little creatures of fair weather, naturally die. But among their number there is a whole hardy brood for which the rigors of winter possess no terrors. | These are the angle wings, or vanes- | sids. They are frequently called “thaw | butterflies” from the fact that during the warm spells of winter they awake from their torpor and may frequently be seen sunning themselves near their place of hibernation or if the weather is mild and pleasant fitting lightly about in the open places. These insects pass the winter both as chrysalis and as mature butterflies. Normally they remain in the crysalis form only about two weeks, but it is probable that the severe cold overtakes some before they are fully developed. which may account for some of them hibernating as chrysalis.—St. Nicholas. COURTING DEATH. The Work of the Mounted Police of Canada In the Northwest. The Northwest policeman’s first duty is to die if that should be necessary. He is not allowed to shoot a desper- ado, go up, sit on his carcass, roll a cigarette and then read the warrant He must not shoot. At all events he must not shoot first, which is often fatal, for if there is a time when delay is dangerous it is when you are cover- | ing an outlaw. writes Cy Warman in the Sunday Magazine. Numbers of the force have been known to ride or walk into the very mouth of a cocked 45 Colt and never flinch. In about ninety-eight cases out of every hundred the man behind the gun weakened. In the other two cases he extended his lease of life, but made his going doubly sure. When a mount- ed policeman falls, the open space he leaves is immediately closed, for back of him stands the Dominion govern- ment and back of that the British em- pire. So the desperado who thinks he can kill and get away has a hard time. If the police chase him out of the Do- minion back to the islands, he is likely to fetch up at Scotland Yard. If his native village lies south of the forty- ninth, the Pinkertons take up trail, and when all these forces are after a man his days are gliding swiftly by. “Next!” “1 was counsel for a railway compa- ny in the west,” says a prominent New York lawyer, “in whose employ a sec- tion hand had been killed by an ex- press train. His widow, of course, sued for damages. The principal witness swore positively that the locomotive whistle had not sounded until after the entire train had passed over his depart- ed friend. “ ‘You admit that the whistle blew? 1 sternly demanded of the witness. “ ‘Oh, yes: it blew. : “ Now,’ I added impressively, ‘if that | whistle sounded in time to give Mor- gan warning the fact would be in favor of the company, wouldn't it? “ 1 suppose so,’ said the witness. “Very well. Now, for what earthly purpose would the engineer blow his whistle after the man had been struck ? “+ presume, replied the witness, with great deliberation, ‘that the whis- tle was for the next man on the track.’ "—Harper's Weekly. Summary Conversion. Hawaiians all became Christians through the simple process of an edict —kapoo—of one of the sturdy old Kamehamehas. The worthy king, ob- serving that it was easier to kill an enemy with a rifle than with a club and that the rifle was the invention of the Christians, took a short cut through the theological mazes of the mission- aries who were trying to convert his subjects and announced that all Ha- wailans were from that moment Chris- tians. As he added that he would knock on the head any who objected the thing was done as fast as his cou- riers could deliver his message to his loving subjects.—New York World. What He Had Done. Tactful and delicate even for a Frenchman was the reply made by a Parisian who had not found “a life on the ocean wave” all which The Name Oscar. It is interesting to remember that the name Oscar was bestowed by Na- poleon on Bernadotte’s son—the first King Oscar—to whom he stood godfa- ther, not for any Swedish associations, but because jt was the name of a hero- fe character in Macpherson's “Ossian,” a work which Napoleon continually studied.—London Spectator. The Practical Girl. “Jack told me he cculd live on my kisses forever.” “Are you going to let him?" “Not till 1 find out what I'm going to live on.”—Chicago Journal. Bellefonte Shoe Emporium, I, Warm Shoes for cold feet. We have them in all kinds. A full and complete line of Good Warm Slippers. Felt Sole Slippers make a present that will be appreciated. We have anything in the Shoe line that you may need. PRICES RIGHT. Come and see. Yeager & Davis BELLEFONTE, PA. Lyon & Co. Lyon &. Company. —— OU R{—— WHITE SALE Will be Continued Two Weeks Longer, as so many people have asked us to keep it up, we will do so. The stock of white goods has been getting stronger every day. To-day we have added specials in Table : Linens and Napkins. 72 inch bleached table damask, quality $1.75, sale price $1.25 per yard—Napkins to match 72 inch bleached table damask, quality $1.50, sale price $1.00 per yard—Napkins to match. Special lot of Napkins, handsome design, in assorted patterns. Bleached damask Napkins, 22 and 23 1-2 inch square, real value $5.00 and $6.00 per dozen. Sale price $3.50 and $4.50 per doz. go cent bleached damask, sale price 75 cents per yard. No space to give you full description of Towels and Toweling, Sheets and Sheeting, Pillows by the pair or“the muslin by the yard, Waistings, etc., etc. See our qualities and we guarantee prices lower than any one. The cold weather has given a fresh call for winter goods. All Ladies’, Misses’ and Children’s Coats at less that manufactur- ers cost. Winter Suits and Overcoats for Men and Children at manufactur- ers cost. In addition to thése special sales we are showing the new styles in early Spring and Summer Dress Goods, Silks and Wash fabrics, Waists and Wasting. Give us a chance to show you the entire stock of special ‘sale values. Reduced sale values, The New Early Spring Dress Goods Novelties and Trimmings. LYON & COMPANY, 17-12 Allegheny St., Bellefonte, Pa. ,e
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers