Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/686

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��Yankees would poke the natives back to make sure all was serene.

The Americans rushed the cottas de- fending the trail at daybreak, and found themselves on the edge of a bowl at the mountain top, some four hundred yards across, packed with huts and Moro cottas or forts. Also several hundred enthusiast- ic Moro bandits were pot- ting at the Americans from every part of the crater.

Presently in the midst of the fitful crackle of the rifle fire, there broke out a sound no Moro had ever heard, the vicious and sustain- ed chatter of the Colt machine gun. From that instant, the Moro fire slack- ened, while the ma- chine gun searched methodically the light bamboo cottas of the Moros, the bullets rip- ping through as fast as spray from a hose. I saw a picture of some of the cottas and trenches taken a few hours later. It was not a pretty picture — particularly in view of the fact that women fought with men, and there had been no chance to pick and choose in the marks for the American guns.

Even after such an experience as this the American Army had little faith in the machine gun. Even the Russians saw the beautiful qualities of the Gatling and bought more Gatling guns than all other nations put together, to use on the natives of Asia who objected to the Russian colonizing and exploring. When a Turco- man charge started for the Russian lines, the Catlings calmly and methodically spread Turcoman riders and horses all over the vicinity.

The field gun and the giant howitzer may masquerade as mere engineering ap- pliances for smashing up trenches, the infantry rifle can establish a weak sort of an alibi as being partly a weapon of self- defense in that it can parry an opposing bayonet, but the machine gun is unblush-

���A Moroccan chief explaining the working of a machine gun to some new mystified army recruits

��ingly a frightful machine for killing men. It has not the slightest utility from any other standpoint.

Although America is notoriously a non- military country, and although the market for man-slaying weapons has always been best abroad, and although the great arsenals for mili- tary weapons were across the water, yet it has been America which has evolved this most awful weapon and placed it at the disposal of modern belligerents.

The greatest man- killing machine on earth, the chattering destroyer of whole battalions, the most formidable defender of the German lines, is not only of Amer- ican design original- ly, but is of American design in its varia- tions as used in the present war. Yet it is undoubtedly true that the equipment of the United States Army contains fewer of these guns than that of any other nation among the great powers.

��A New Sugar Flour from Northern France

WHILE the brainiest men of Europe are working over the war situation, new geniuses are arising in the ranks of the manufacturers, farmers and ordinary workmen to solve the food supply prob- lems. In Northern France a new flour is being made from sugar beets. It is used for bread and for cattle food, as well as for certain brewing processes.

The fresh beet pulp is poured into a vat into which currents of warm air are introduced for drying. Then it is passed through a series of gratings which rotate one above another. After this the pulp is delivered into compartments in which the temperature of the air is gradually in- creased to about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. It is then sufficiently free from moisture to be pulverized and used as flour.

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