Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial402dodg).pdf/366

836 chance—taking photographs of gun-fire would be an impossibility, for, at the instant when the guns are fired and the exposure of the plate should be made, the thundering noise and the oscillating motion, combined with the terrific shock, seem completely to stun and paralyze one:it is all that one can do to hang on and brace himself safely,

in order to avoid being dashed to pieces on the decks far below. Once, while standing unguardedly, camera in one hand and my gripsack in the other, in the basket at the top of the mast of the battle-ship Michigan, the salvo came, and I was thrown forward with such force that my camera and grip were torn out of my hands and went flying into the ocean; and it was luck only that prevented me from going with them!

The “whip” of the mast, during fire, is due to the recoil of the guns, On the, when a salvo from the ten-inch guns is fired, the aggregate energy of the ten shells amounts to 500,000 foot-tons—sufficient power to lift a 20,000-ton ship twenty-five feet in the air, The recoil of these heavy guns, which in combination weigh 500 tons, is communicated to the ship with such force as to cause it to heel, in the opposite direction from the target, to the extent of from four to five degrees. The shock is gigantic, no part of the dreadnought escapes its force, and the masts are whipped back and forth like slender reeds blown by the breeze.

The crashing noise, combined with the air current, strikes one so stinging a blow when the first “whip” comes, that he feels as though he had been boxed by the hand of an unscen giant, and, unless the ears are protected by special ear mufflers, total deafness will result.

Many of the pictures of battle practice here published have been taken with great and under fully as dangerous conditions as could be met while hunting wild animals in Africa.