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Show ill 'Nawj'Tales V a Lieutenant in the S United States Nauu :VV-:.v-: . N ' E v,v . ::;:.. . 'v5!S!Av...s.. GAS CHECK TTOW simple each Is! von,1.''"', lnalll(k'cent globe over jour hond-yet man had mastered e i ctrlclty for years before he knew a charged wire In vacuum would give KiK'h brilliancy. That differential on your rear auto axle-yet rear axles "'i'e abominations before genius equalized turning speeds by a triplet gear of utter simplicity. Life Is full of mechanical miracles. We take them for granted. Gas-checks belong to the class. After four years 0f war every one knows "'hat a gas-check is. Fits in the gun, J'ou know, to prevent flare-back or leakage of powder gas on firing. Breech-plug is just a round chunk of steel threaded to screw Into the eun's back end after loading. It is pierced by a small hole in its center. Mushroom stem fits into this hole. It really looks like a mushroom just big enough to enter the gun. When explosion rocks the earth and sours Mrs. Jones milk ten miles away the projectile gets an awful boot in its rear. The mushroom's face filling the breech gets an equal and opposite boot. Gases do the booting. Fiery, furious masses of gases, rending heaven and earth asunder to escape. It's the heat of their passionate desire that gives the shell Its kick. Were there any other avenue of escape never would they bother with a half-ton shell. So breech must be sealed tight. Be tween mushroom and plug is put a pad of G5 per cent asbestos and 35 per cent tnliow worked up into a solid circular cir-cular form. Volcanic pressure upon mushroom face squeezes the pad against the plug. In helpless agony Us edges protrude. They squash against the gun tube and check effectually effectu-ally escape of gas. Hence, gas-check pad. But that Is common knowledge. The Interesting point Is historical. Naval guns stuck over the side. To load them muzzle-ways running-in was once necessary. But running-in took time. So our worthy forbears built breech loaders. Whiskers were then in vogue. Alas, the cruelty of war ! Breech loaders load-ers worked to beat the band. But the very first broadside scorched sideburns, side-burns, goatees, moustachios, and "chin-ners," "chin-ners," from their proud owners' chins and cheeks. Gases did It. Gases that leaked through the unsealed breeches. In consequence breech-loaders were pronounced failures. So powerful Is fashion. And for years and years our whiskered man-o'-warsman feared them. Until the simple expedient of gas-check gas-check came. But isn't it the irony of fate that one sees smooth-faced sailors sail-ors now? The great discovery came too late. Too late for whiskers, yes. JACOB JONES JOHN PAUL, don't they mean?" said everyone when the U. S. S. Jacob Jones was sunk. No, there was no mistake. This destroyer was named after another naval hero nearly a generation younger young-er than the illustrious founder of our navy. "Jiggy," as our friends are said to have called him, had an extraordinary career. His education was unique in that be began as a doctor, shifted to law, and finally showed his good sense by joining the. navy. He was first heard of near Smyrna, Delaware, in 17G8 where his feverish father was prancing up and down the front porch taking two to one money on Jake's being twins or a girl. After 31 years of the hardships of civil life he entered naval life as a midshipman. His first ship was the frigate United States on which he served In the French war and learned how to dodge cannon balls and scurvy. In 1803 he transferred to the Philadelphia Phil-adelphia in time to get in the Bnrbary pirates' row. Ignominously the vessel grounded In the harbor of Tripoli and Jiggy beenme a prisoner of war. After 20 months in the jug he was released. On his return and after he had blown in all the money he had on the books, he put in a placid cruise In southern waters on the "Adams" and on the "Argus." In 1S10 be became skipper of the "Wasp" First crack out of the box he captured the brig "Dolphin" and not long afterward the British warship war-ship "Frolic." The latter engagement was pretty much of a brawl and Jig-gy's Jig-gy's ship got all cut up. But as luck would have It the enemy's 4-gun "Polctiers" butted In at this moment and captured our hero and his captives cap-tives ns well. He was paroled in Bermuda where he put on a great deal of flesh while waiting for a chance to make some more history. For some years afterward he fooled llbo.it with several big ships without Having any great opportunity to d,s-nguish d,s-nguish himself. Finally he took the I accdonian" to the Metllterrancan bnt was captured by an Algenne brig nd for the fourth time cast Into a da igeon , . A-'tcr p0.,rP was declared he commanded com-manded the Mediterranean squadron, , "la a navy yard, and had other mis- cellaneous jobs. He topped off by being be-ing commandant of the naval asvlum lu Philadelphia, which was the most miscellaneous job of all. He died in 1852 at the age of 82 and was buried with appropriate honors hon-ors In the Brandywine cemetery, Wilmington. Wil-mington. SMOKERS TOR genuine resourcefulness and J- initiative the American bluejacket has no equal the world over. Give him half a chance, the skinniest hint of an idea, and you'll get more action than a two-tailed comet. Smokers prove it. The fleet has them Saturday nights now and then. They're like stag parties ashore In a way. But think of a thousand stags and half a thousand guests! Picture them young and vigorous, and curbing the ardor of their spirits by the same strength of restraint that gives them to fight like men. The band plays and the movies move, and the Irish bosun warbles his seagoing best. Up goes a tremenjus roar. "The heavy-weight champeen of the North Atlantic fleet 1" bellows an official announcer. Follow six vicious rounds in a tarred rope circle, decks sanded for. blood as of old. But it's most fun to trade with another an-other nation. In Cherbourg some years ago ten tarry Toilus visited the flagship as a committee to invite the crews of American men-of-war to a Christmas celebration ashore. There was no volunteering. All hands knew the fun to come. Lots had to be drawn. On the gala night two-hundred two-hundred husky descendants of Lafayette's La-fayette's "cheres amis" lined the Cherbourg Cher-bourg quay and lockstepped up to the town hall. For the evening ropes were down. Light wines and beer flowed freely. Great heaps of cakes, pastry such as only French maids can make, disappeared disap-peared as if- by the wand of a fairy. To say 'twas merry is like calling molten metal "warm." A giant Christmas tree stood at one end. Constellations of colored candles sparkled through its branches from top to bottom. Under each candle hung a package, one gift for each guest. "S-h-h-h." A French host held up his hand. "Dear friends, it is beautiful beauti-ful this night that you should be joyful joy-ful with us. Now," pointing gracefully toward the tree, "shall we hava the presents?" The brief speech was well said. But unfortunntely it was in French, a language not commonly spoken In our great navy. And unfortunately one ol theiii started forward. Instant action resulted. The Yankees charged. They swept the tree from its moorings. They swept it through the great hall's after window, In a roaring roar-ing rollicking mob they swept it down the street and lato their waiting boats. Call it rude and rowdy. Sniff and turn away. You're wrong. That was the grandest example of resource and initiative some of us will ever know. OLD INVENTIONS WE LIVE too much in the present We call ours a spectacular age. We call It our age. We are wrong, egoistically In error. And our egoism blinds us to what has gone before. Men marvel at the precision of modern artillery fire. The miracle so they say which makes this possible Is the aircraft spotting. Men rise high above the target trenches and observe directly the flight and fall of projectiles. projec-tiles. By wireless to the guns ranges are corrected to put the next salvo crashing over the enemy. "My I" we ejaculate with fatuous confoundment, "how marvelous it is !" And yet if we took the trouble to pry a musty volume from our shelf we could read the Identical story already half a century old. When Commodore Foote bombarded Island No. 10 in the Mississippi river he sent up a naval officer in his kite balloon, the Eagle. From an altitude of some 2,000 feet the birdmnn (old papers used the term) discovered that his guns were shooting high.. He signalled changes of range until they "bulled." We shivered and shook, or some of us did, over the sudden submarine onslaught on-slaught which struck the World war frightfulness. Yet our own strategists planned and in part executed just such a blockade along the coast of our southern states. The U-boats used by the Germans embodied the substance of American Inventions. With goose-flesh nnd gloom we studied lurid portrayals of the night attacks abroad. Yet our very own War department equipped its signal forces in 1SG3 with powerful oxy-hydrogen or calcium lights "by means of which a force of 2,000 men could work at night as well as by daylight." A good Imitation Imi-tation of the modern star-shell could bo dropped from the aerostats. And both white and colored signal torches were sent up by small balloons. Finally Final-ly the observer could telegraph direct from his basket to tlK commanding colonrl five miles away. All this taught the Confederates to use camouflage. Tl'ey ifJ tin mm; guns and put up green branches tr conceal the real ones. Ir. one part o' the lines ",00 men were engaged in tbi-work. |