Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/862

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��Popular Science Monthly

��twisted joint sleeve without regard to the position of the upper cranks or the lower wheels.

At rest a series of screws with flat heads descend and level the platform automat- ically.

The inner tube of any big gun is no stronger than any flaw which it may con- tain. To make a tube in one piece is like putting all your eggs in one basket. The inner tube of my rifle is designed to take care of the stress developed parallel with the major axis only. It consists of 16 strips of steel, each 375 feet long, 2 feet thick, 22^degreeswide, each locked with the next, making a tube 375 feet long, 9 feet in diameter, with a 5-foot bore. To take care

��A man on horse- back looks like a child's toy in com- parison with the height of this shell standing on end

���of the stress at right angles with the gun's major axis, I shrink upon this segmented tube 750 steel rings each 6 inches thick, 12 feet in diameter with a 9-foot hole. These rings are of compressed steel made when in a semi-fluid state and subjected to the greatest pressure that can be de- veloped. Upon these rings a series of steel sleeves are locked and shrunk. Last- ly, the trunnion and breech band are placed in position. As a result of this con- struction the gun is proportionately 40% stronger parallel with its major axis and at right angles to it than a 16-inch gun of the same size would be.

One shell from this gigantic weapon would annihilate Essen and make the Krupp works look like so many heaps of emery powder. Another would make the whole district a Valley of Death for thirty days after it fell. v \ One form of shell used is exploded by

��The new rifle is 375 feet long and weighs 39,277 tons without the mountings

���THE BUNNELL GUN

��TRINITY, N.Y

��The rifle has a bore of sixty inches, throwing its huge projectile 100 miles

��A comparison of the length of the gun with the height of Trinity Church and steeple, New York

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