Evening Star Newspaper, August 22, 1896, Page 14

‘AMERICA’S ELDORADO Leadville the Center of the Mining Industry. MILLIONS HAVE BEEN PRODUCED + Strange Tales of the Finding of Unexpected Fortunes. ee DEAD MAN’S CLAIM 2 (Coprr: 1896, by Frank G. Carpenter.) LEADVILLE, Col. August 17, 1896. I EADVILLE IS ONE of the great treasure vaults of the United States. Within the past seventeen years Uncle Sam has drawn upon it to the extent of more than $200,- 000,000, but It has to- day more than one hundred producing mines and its unde- veloped riches are in- calculable. It con- tains some of the st gold and some of the most wonder- 1 silver mines of the world. The territory surrounding it is being reprospected, new mines are being opened and some of the old mines are so wonderful in their production ig own do not want them men- 1 in the newspapers. Such a one is Little Johnny,” which now has an out- put of $10.0 worth of gold a day, and which, I am told, couid be made to pro- duc the owners wished it, $50,000 in gold daily de for years to cc t of this m me. I met the p n@ the other day and as if I might visit it. He offered to grant the permission, but only on condition that I} 1 say nothing about my trip in the newspapers. I replied that 1 was in Lead- ville to get the news and not to suppress it. The result was I did not visit the mine. There ts no doubt, however, but that it is one ¢ ost wonderful mi of the banks hi cimens of the pure gold n taken from it. The gold in is in the shape of ordinary gold in places there are flakes and re metal, and every now and ich pocket is struck in which it Tne daily output of the “Lit- “18 now about 2 tons, and the value of the ore is nearly $50. the two deepest of which ere 750 feet. Gold Is struck about 300 feet below the ground, And it is said that the whole area of more than 106 acres is mineralized Millions tn Silver. Leadville is one of the greatest silver camps of the United States. Millions upon millions have heen taken out of the earth back of the city and scattered broadcast over the world. Much of the money which but ales of averag! There are now stx shafis on the proper Levi Z Leiter 1s now spending in enter- ta in Washington and gallavanting over Europe came from a silver mine here, which he bought for $40,000, and which ed out more than a’ million. A part of James G. Blaine’s po- expenses were paid out of his mine in Leadville, and it is a five minutes’ walk from the heart ef this city to the spot where Senator Tabor, by grub-staking a couple of miners, jumped ce from the position of a poor to that of a mining millionaire. I think that Tabor made something like ht million dollars out of his . and though he és practically t tolay, there are others who have done almost as well and kept their money. Millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of silver has been taken out of the hills back of the town, and there are vast quantities of dump and waste rock walled up almost on the edge of the houses. The city itseif ts x sid with precious minerals. About ay Maj. A. Bohn struck a sil- ver the edge of the town, the ore of whic averaged 108 ounces of silver, with p ad then a jump to as high as from s. It has been found that vein extends right under Lead- ville. and it ls a question now as to whether Leadville can hold its silver or whether If Leadville gets It the richest city in the world, and ok of ore under the streets will more than t y debt and reasury. Lead- & were dedicated munictpa ye that all that is hem belongs t he city. The orig- vs of the land are now claiming they gave the ground only as and so the question hangs it Is to go to othe! it will ty ne silver mines of Leadville are y can be worked at a profit, g the low price of silver. In notwith the Moffat and Smith mines there are 550 men on the pay roll as miners, and it takes about three men to handle and care for the ore to each miner. There are 8,000 men at work in the Leadville mining district. and laborers get from $2 to $3 per day. The Wolfton mine has recently struck an im- mense body of ore, neither end of which has yet been found, but in which 108,000 tons of silver-bearing rock have been blocked out. This, it is estimated, will pay at least $$ a ton above all expenses of handling and smelting, making the ore in this mine alone worth at least $864,000. Mr. Moffat told me in my interview thai his best mine had been the “Maid of Erin, for which he had paid about $100,000, and out of which himself and his partners had made $5,000,000. This mine is still being worked, and there are other great silver mines here which are shipping ore. A Visit to the “Maid of Erin.” I paid a visit the other day to this five- million-dollar maiden. The Maid of Erin silver mine Hes on the hills just above Leadville. It is surrounded by mountains of waste rock, and it has immense frame buildings, something like those of.a great factory. A look at it gives you some idea of the enormous cost of silver mining. The engines which move its machinery have ten great boilers, and its furnaces are so large that ten men are constantly shovel- Nick Creede. ing coal into them to keep the fires alive. They eat up from twenty-five to thirty tons of coal a day, and the coal bill for the furnaces alone amounts to $150 daily. Five hundred dollars a day is paid for wages to the miners, and the machinery is of the most costly description. After dressing in miners’ clothes I went down into the shaft. Stepping on the elevator I was dropped hundreds of feet, past tunnel after tunnel running off into the vein, until I was at last more than a thousand feet below the surface. Running off from the shafts are these great pipes or tunnels, out of which have been cut the silver and lead. They are this way and that, so that they form a labyrinth like the avenues in the Catacombs of Rome. You could lose yoursel? in this ©. It connects with the great Henrietta ne, and you might wander about from tunnel to tunnel without finding your way to the shaft. This is a wet mine, and it takes an enormous amount of money to wall it with timbers. Many such mines contain forests of great logs, and !t is estimated that there is more than $7,000,000 worth of lumber and timber used in mines of Leadville alone. Each of these tunnels is roofed ani walled with big pine logs, and the stopes, or caves, ay from the tunnels In order to get the silver out, have to be almost filled with timbers, for fear their sides may cave in. .No one who has not gone through a great mine can appreciate the amount of water which flows into it. bn the bottom of the Maid of Erin streams of ice-cold water flow thorugh the tunnels hke so many mountain brooks. Overhead are pipes for steam and for compressed alr to run the drills. There is a railroad track in each tunnel and boards upon which you can walk to keep out of the stream. The water is taken out of the mine by enormous steam pumps. Nine hundred feet below the surface of the ground I found an immense engine room, a large part of the aN iat MUL \ \ means of dynamite. Each man had a can- dle held in a curious wire frame and stuck into the rock by his side. Each man had hold of a drill attached to a pipe, through which the compressed air came, which turned it around and around with almost inconceivable speed. The men held their drills against the rocks, and as they did so the sparks flew from the stone, and atom by atom the drills bored the great holes into which the dynamite candles were to be placed. Before coming into the tunnel I had visited the dynamite warehouse. It was merely a closet filled with what looked like candles. Each candle was as big around as a broom handle, and about ten inches lcng, and each contained enough dynamite, I was told, to blow down any city house. The drills were of about the same diameter as the candles, and, after the holes were made by them, the car- tridges were inserted and gently pounded in. A fuse is connected and the re- mainder of the hole is closed with earth fitting in about the fuse and being carefully pounded or pressed against the candle. All of the holes are filled at the same ime and then connected by electric- ity. Now the men leave the mine. The engineer in the boiler room, a half mile away, raises a lever, the sparks of elec- tricity fly and a moment iater hundreds of tons of rock fall to the ground ready to be carried off in great steel cars and dump- ed down the sides of the mountains. Near- ly all mining is now done by blasting. There is Httle digging with a pick except to take out the rock which has been blasted down and every manner of labor saving appliance that will cut down expenses or increase the output is used. A View of Lendville. tanding on the dump of the Maid of Erin you get a good view of Leadville. It lies In a nest in the Rockies and it ts sur- rounded by some of the most picturesque scenery of the United States. Imagine an amphitheater, the walls of which are snow- capped mountains, and jn one side of the arena there is a mass of dust-colored houses. Let there be buildings of red and yellow brick, log cabins covered with dust, wood- en shanties and comfortable homes, all éusted with yellow, put mountains of broken rock here and there through it and let immense frame buildings which mark the sites of smelters show out below it, and you have a faint idea of the city of Leadville as it looks today. It is a city of schools and churches, a city of wealth and manufactures, a town of gold and sil- ver and lead. It contains about 12,000 peo- ple, but it does more business than a town of three times the size in the east. It is the highest town of Its size {a the United States. There are parts of it which are alive with brimstone and when you drive In the direction of the smelters you have to cover your nostrils and mouth with your hand- kerchief in order to be able to breathe. ‘The brimstone comes from the sulphur in the ore, which 1s liberated by the terrible heat of the smelting furnaces. Mixed with this smell is the dust, which, when the wind blows, fills all parts of the city. The gold and silver ore is hauled to the smel- ters through the streets in enormous was- ons, each of which is drawn by four horses. There 1s an almost continuous pro- cession of. these wagons going through from daylight until dark, and the pecious dirt under foot is ground to powder. Leadville Placer Mines. Speaking of gold dust, placer mining ts still done near Leadville. This has been one of the greatest placer mining camps of the world. California Gulch, which Hes ‘The First House in Creede. just below Leadville, has produced the enormous amount of $35,000,000 worth of gold. This was the great gold mining camp of 1859 and 1860, when the words “Pike's Peak or bust” should have been “Califor- ria Guich or bust.” The work was then done in old pans or rocking cradles and MAID OF ERIN MINE, LEADVILLE. machinery of which consisted of pumps, which work away there day and night. They carry out of the mine 900 gallons of water a minute, or 54,000 gallons an hour. If they were stopped for two or three hours the mine would be filled, and it would cost a for- tune to open it again. Tunneling for Ore. ‘They do not hesitate to spend a great deal to bring about results. I visited a tunnel the other day which was being driven into the side of a mountain, in order to strike the gold veins which are supposed to lie there. Every foot of the tunnel would cost at least $20, and it was to be more than a mile in length. The company expected to spend more than $100,000 in making the tunnel, and they were drilling through the rock by steam, forcing the drills into the granite by means of compressed air. In company with one of the men I entered the tunnel. We each carried a candle, but we had to shield it with our hands, for the water came down in torrents from the roof of the tunnel, and was carried off in a drain or box-like ditch, which ran under the car track, We waded along the track for a distance of nearly half a mile before we came to the end of the excavation. Here the men were blasting down the rock by the stories of the gold nuggets and the xcld dust found were carried all over the world. Two million and a half dollars’ worth of gold were taken out of this gulch in 1860. The men who panned it noted that there was a heavy black sand mixed with the gold, but they did not realize that this sand was carbonate of lead until years af- terward, when it was discovered that the lead was rich with silver and the mining began which made Leadville one of the greatest silver camps of the world. One of the first big silver mines opened was discovered by the Gallagher Brothers, two poor Irishmen, and another was opened by Fryer, from whom Fryer Hill, one of the most famous mining districts here, was named. Fryer lived in a squatty’ little cabin cn the side of this hill, and he was looked upon by his neighbors as utterly Worthless and good for nothing. One day he went Into the pines back of his cabin and dug a hole. He struck ore almost at the grass roots, and opened up a mine which yielded more than a million dollars. How a Grave Digger Struck It Rich. Apother famous mine was known as the “Dead Man’s Claim,” and the man who acted as a grave digger on a certain occa- sion became its owner. A well-known THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1896-TWENTY PAGES. miner had died, and his friends, who want- ed to give him a gdoa send-off into the other world, hired a “muh to dig his grave for $20. It was in thé midst of the winter. ‘There were ten feet ofsnow on the ground, and the grave had fo%go six feet below that. In order to keep the deceased in proper condition untif the grave was dug he was laid away in tha snow for the time. Nothing was heard ofthe grave digger for three days, and then $Re boys, wishing to carry out the remainder of the funeral, went out to see him. found him dig- ging away with all might, but they found also that he bgt} put up the stakes and gone through ceremonies which gave him a miner's to all the land about the grave, In down into the earth he had struck ore, and the rock which he got out ag worth about $00 a ton. The mournem' at once staked out claims adjoining hi id the deceased was forgotten, He r fin the snow bank until the spring sun Sfewed him out, when he was awarded an Mrdfpary burial in an- other part of tha camp., Big Silver Mines. An idea seems to prevail that the silver mines are doing nothing. This is not true. There are many silver mines which run so rich that they are still worked with a profit, and if silver should again touch par with gold our silver product would be enormous. Mining has never been done so carefully as today, and science has never done so much to make the production of gold and silver cheap. ‘Take the Creede camp, which has made so many men rich. Creede was a poor prospector when he dis- covered the “Holy Moses,” which, in 1802, netted more than one and one-half million dollars. Creede sold it for $10,000. He made other strikes, and he has now an income of @ thousand dollars a day. Still he tramped the mountains for twenty years before he made his big strike, and he was fifty be- fore he became a millionaire. He made the bulk of his fortune out of the Amethyst and other mines, and the great receipts of the Holy Moses went to Dave Moffat and his partners. A man named Renniger was riding through the mountains about Creede on one of these Itttle donkeys known as Im an Aspen Silver Mine. burros. He had another burro to carry his pick and prospecting tools. He was a grub staker, that is, some man had furnished him tools and groceries for a certain time with the understanding that the capital- ist should have half of what he discovered. One night, when Renniger camped, his burros strayed away, and he spent days in finding them. When he did find them he looked at the rocks upon which they were A Car of Silver Rock. standing and saw that they contained sil- ver. He located on that spot what ts known as the “Last Chance” mine, which paid $250,000 in dividends from its ‘surface production, and which has produced for- tunes. Near this mine Creede, now a part- ner of Moffat, discovered the “Amethyst” mine, which, in 1892, produced $1,400,000 worth of silver, and which is now capitaliz- ed at $5,000,000, This mine now belongs to Senator Wolcott and others. It is very rich. Not far from Leadville is the great_min- ing camp known as Aspen. It is in Pitkin county, out of which has been dug more than $10,000,000 worth of silver ore. Aspen produced, in 1891, $10,000,000 worth of sil- ver. It 1s situated on an enormous silver lode, which is said to be from eight to twelve miles long, and which, before silver dropped, was producing the white metal at the rate of a million dollars a month. At Aspen is the famous Mollie Gibson silver mine, the average ore of which is worth $600 a ton, and of which single car loads of ore have netted more than $60,000. There is one mine at Aspen which has taken out more than $7,000,000 from an area of about half an acre of ground, the works of the nine going down nearly 1,700 feet below the surface. FRANK G. CARPENTER. —— AWAY ONE DANGER. TAKE X Rays Will Infallibly Indicate Life or Death, From the New York Journal. At last what seems an infallible indication of death has been discovered. Scores of people have a horror of being buried alive, and there have been many attempts made to discover some test aside from time that will assure the friends that death has really occurred, and that the burial may safely proceed. Heretofore none of these tests has been absolute, and each has failed signally. Dr. C. L. Barnes, a Chicago physician, has recently been experimenting with X rays, and he now announces that they will de- termine positively whether real death has occurred or whether the patient is in a trance. Dr. Barnes made a shadowgraph of his own hand, and on the same plate laid the dissected hand of a cadaver. When the plate was developed, after being exposed to the mysterious rays for some time, the dif- ference in the two radiographs was nctice- able. The dead flesh offered more resis’ ance to the penetration of the rays than the liv- ing, and a glance would determine which was the hand of the corpse. Other experl- ments which he made contirmed kis opin- ion. The fluroscope fs even better than the shadowgraph as a mteans:of determining whether life is present or mot. It seems strange that there should be no acc @ite way of determining when a man ts deaa, but such is really the case. The ab- sence of the circulation of the blood is a fairly good test, but there are instances of persons having recovered after the heart had ceased to beat—or, at least, beat so weakly that it was not perseptible either in the breast’ or at the pulse) Muscular con- traction cannot be relied ow, as dead people will twitch when an electric battery is ap- plied to them. Rigor‘moriis cannot be re- Hed on, for that is often present in the case of cataleptics. The graduti cooling of the body has long been regarded by ph: as an accurate test, but ft is now known that such a condition may follow the cal- lapse which accompames partial drowning. ‘The contraction of the muscles is an ac- companiment of certain di¥eases, and so is the discoloration of thé skii¥ which is notice- able after death. it Dr. Barnes is a well-known physician, and his discovery is regarded as one of vast im- portance. He has written several books on dissection, embalming and kindred subjects, and has been experimenting with the X rays ever since Roentgen made his discovery known. ——___+e+ The One Exception. From the New York World. Student of human nature—"You come in contact with all kinds of people, I sup- pose?” “L” Chopper—“Yes, sir; all except one kind.” Student of human nature (interestea)— “Indeed! Who are they?” “L” Chopper—Them as has ses, the cable road.’ Se A ROYAL BLACK SHEEP Sketch of the Heir to the Austrian Throne. THE WICKEDEST PRINCE IN EUROPE Some of His Original Ways of Self- Entertainment. DISGUST OF THE {EMPEROR a (Copyright, 1896, by the Bacheller Syndicate. MPEROR FRANCIS Joseph's step in offi- cially proclaiming his nephew Archduke Otto as heir to the throne of Austro- Hungary 1s a great disappointment to his people, who, ever since Otto’s elder brother Francis Fer- dinand became af- fillcted with tubercu- losis of the lungs, to which he is now rap- have been hoping that idly succumbing, their kaiser would set aside the claims of this most unpopular of all the members of his house, either in favor of one of his grand-nephews r of the son of his younger daughter, the Archduchess Valerie. But Otto is not the kind of man to permit him- self to be quietly ousted from what he re- gards as his rights; and, in spite of his disreputable personal character, he has many supporters, especially among the ultra-conservatives and the ultra-clerical element, who do not forget that he is a grandson of King ‘“‘Bomba” of Naples, and that he has been educated by the Jesuits in all the old Hapsburg traditions of mon- archical right-divine, and of hatred of con- stitutional government. The common peo- ple, however, detest him, even in Austria, while in Hungary he is abhorred by all classes alike. In fact, he is the one mem- ber of the imperial family whom it has been necessary to guard against insult on the part of the public. A Solid Claim. Otto’s claim to the throne is indisputa- ble. He is the second son of the late Arckduke Charles Louis, second brother of the emperor, who, after the tragic end of Crown Prince Rudolph, became heir to the throne. But what the emperor thinks of his suc- cessor 1s best shown by the steps which he has taken in connection with Otto's trarsfer to Vienna, where he is to reside under the eye of his majesty in that s tion of the imperial palace or urg’ known as the garten,” formerly oc- cupied by Prince Constantine Hohenlohe. Hts entire staff and household have been dismissed by the emperor, who has himself appointed a new set of court officials in their stead. These, according to the “Of- ficial Gazette,” just published, are to take their orders, not from the archduke, but from the emperor himself, to whom they will report, and who alone has the power to instruct or dismiss them. The chief of the household ts Prince Montenuovo, presi- dent of the Austrian Jockey Club, who reluctantly and at the personal request of the emperor has surrendered his office of grandmaster of the imperial court in order to undertake the very difficult and by no means pleasant task of converting Otto into a respectable citizen. Prince Montenuovo's father was the illegitimate son of Empress Marie Louise of France and of her Austrian chamberlain, Count Neiperg, who figures as the lover In Sar- dou’s celebrated play, ‘Madame Sans Gene.” The Imperial Black Sheep. Otto is the black sheep of the imperial family, and the estimation in which he ts held by his countrymen may be gathered from the fact that some time ago, when he exhibited at one of the art shows at Vienna a water color that he had painted representing a wild boar surrounded by tts progeny, it was the standing joke for peo- ple to esk one another what they thought Erzherzog Otte. of “Otto letze Schweinerle?" (which may be translated as “Otto's last piece of hog- gishness’’). He is not only a Nbertine, but also a drunkard, frequently seen intoxicat- ed in public, and his behavior to his wife, a daughte- of Prince George of Saxo! has been of so disgraceful a character that on two occasions she has been compelled to leave him and to return to her family. A short time before the birth of his eldest boy he brought a number of disreputable companions, male and female, into his pal- ace at night, and after having drunk him- self into a state of absolute insanity, invit- ed his companions to go upstairs with him to his wife’s bed room in order that they might see how an archduchess looked in bed. Fortunately for her imperial high- there was present in the palace at the time one of the aids-de-camp, who, hearing the noise and knowing the char- acter of the prince to whose household he The Archduchess. was attached, feared that the archduchess might stand in need of protection. So when the drunken crowd of men and wo- men came upstairs they were encountered by the young officer, who drew his sword and threatened to run it through any one save the archduke who attempted to pass. This, and this alone, saved the poor arch- duchess from the crowning indignity which her disreputable husband had prepared for her. As it was, he escaped with three raonths’ arrest imposed upon him by the emperor, while the young officer was sent back to regimental duty and received pro- motion. Received a Wonnd. About a year ago the archduke received @ severe pistol wound in the shoulder, which necessitated his going on a long leave of absence. An effort on the part of the friendly press was made to attribute the wound to an attempt at suicide. Rut this story was in flagrant contradiction of the well-founded rumors that he had re- ceived the injury in a duel, his adversary being no other than his brother-in-law, Prince John of Saxony. One thing, at any rate, is certain, that when a man attempts to commit suicide he does not generally ceratee @ pistol at his right shoulder. It is of Archduke Otto, too, that the story is tcld of his stopping a peasant’s funeral in order to permit him to amuse himself and his companions by leaping his horse to and fro over the dead child's bier. Emperor Francis Joseph not only de- tests him, but is known on one occasion to have struck him in the face in a fit of fury at some piece of blackguardism that the young prince had perpetrated. He sees re- flected in Otto all Crown Prince Rudolph’s worst faults without a single one of his many redeeming qualities. An Unproved Charge of Libel. Only a short time ego the stories above related were publisheé in detail In the lead- ing newspaper of Buda-Pesth. The arch- duke appealed to his uncle the emperor to punish the editor of the jovrnal in ques- tion, but Francis Joseph, declining to com- ply with his entreaties, and acting in defer- ence to the advice of his Hungarian cabinet ministers, recommended Otto to prosecute the paper for libel just as if he had been an ordinary citizen instead of a member of the imperial family. The archduke had alternative but to follow the monarch’s advice. Proceedings for libel were insti. tuted, and the case was brought to court in the Hungarian capital, but the jury, after a short deliberation, rendered a unan. imous verdict in favor of the editor. Inas- much as the latter had admitted his re- sponsibility for the publication of the as- sertions about the archduke, and had only pleaded in justification that they were besed upon fact, the sole inference to be gathered from the verdict, subsequently confirmea by the court of appeal, was ‘hat the obnoxious statements were absolutely true. That ended the matter, and conse- quently the prince, now officially prociaim- ed as heir to the ducal @mpire, stands branded by the great courts of Justice of the land as a reprobate of the deepest dye. It may be added that about a year pre- viously a Viennese newspaper, having ven- tured to allude in a much milder and more guarded manner to some of these unsavory episodes in the archduke's career, had its offices invaded by a band of his imperial highness’ friends, who proceeded to thrash the editors and reporters with the flat of their sabers and with sticks, destroying both machinery and plates before leaving the sadly wrecked establishment. So great is the subserviency to the imperial house in the Austrian portion of the dual empire that this outrage was permitted to pass by unpunished, save by the arrest person- ally inflicted by Francis-Joseph upon his nephew. But the Hungarians are much more democratic and independent, and it was because the archduke realized this that he did not venture to pursue at Pesth the same tactics that he had adopted at Vienna. Such, then, is the future Emperor of Austria. ———.__. THE QUEEN’S BED ROOM. Private Apartments of the Woman Who Reigns Over Great Britain From the New York World. ‘There are three rooms in Buckingham Palace which have, perhaps, excited more curiosity than all the rest of the apart- ments put together, viz. the royal bed chamber, dressing room and the small 1eom opening from the “White Drawing Rccom,” and known as the queen’s private cloret. Most people when they think of the queen's bed room have visions of stately grandeur, in which bedsteads cf gold vie for supremacy with jeweled carpets, im- possible tapestries, fantastic furniture and other elaborate adornments. In reality, however, the quean’s bed room Is surpris- ing in its piainness. Both the bedstead and the furniture are of the simplest form imaginzble. But, though the room is seerningly so ur preten- tious, there are innumerable articles so costly and dear to the queen that money could not possibly buy them. In the first place, the photographs and pictures of the prince consort stand out conspicuously on every hand. The room is full of them, for none of her majesty’s possessiois appeal so powerfully to her heart as do these. Each one has its own his:ory, snd in the mind of the queen are hiddea unspeakable memories in which these ull have their lit- Ue part and lot. The queen’s bed room, more than ary ether room, ts, in this sense, her chicf treasure house. For this reason impera- tive orders have been given by the queen herself that on no consideration must her bed room and cressing room be shown to the public eye. In the top hand corner ef the white drawing room is a secret spring, faced by a Magnificent cabinet and surmounted by a costly mirror. Even a close scrutiny of the wall would scarcely reveal the fact of what lies beyond. But the initiated hand can in a moment effect a miniature trans- formation. One touch, and cabinet, mir- ror and all open intact into a smaller room beyond. This is the queen’s private closet. The carpet herein is sacred to royal feet. No visitor or guest outside the pale of the royal family is suffered to tread the pre- nets of this room. It is used exclu sively by her majesty and those members of her family who are going with her int) the throne room, to assist in receiving foreign ambassadors and those distinguished mem- bers of the aristocracy who are privileged to be presented to royalty. The royal closet is tastefully, if not lux- uriously, furnished, and contains among several other interesting art treasures a magnificent collection of engmels. The subject of one is “The Holy Famil: It is placed immediately over the doorway, and is the largest enamel known. It is this secluded cerner, also, which furnishes the abode of the most magnificent collec tion of cabinets in the palace. There is che cabinet of inlaid pebbles, with ormolu carvings, and jardinieres of fruit in the center, which can scarcely be matched any. where. There are also two cabinets of the most exquisite workmanship. “rimson silk forms the clothing of both wails and furniture, the frames of the ‘Tat. ter being overlaid with burnished gold. —1oe EXPOSED TO CERTAIN DEATH. One of the Most Dangerous Places on @ Man-of-War. From the New York Press, In that coming naval battle between the steel fleets of the two first-class powers to which nautical authorities have been look- ing forward ever since modern battle ships became the mighty engines of problematical forces that they are, the military mast and fighting top will play a deadly part, and be the station of danger and heroism. As everybody knows, the old mast, the mast of yrrds end sails, has vanished from the modern ship of war. The Newark is the only modern ship in the United States navy which has sail-carrying masts. The place of the mast that was erected for sail- carrying purposes is taken on the modern warship by a steel tower, which rises from the deck to support one, or maybe three or four circular galleries, where rapid-fire or machine guns are placed, which, in time of action, pour their hail of bullets at the decks and ports of the hostile ship. The object is to kill the gunners, for it is self-evident that the most powerful gun is powerless if its crew is dead. Take the twenty rapid-fire guns distributed along the superstructure of the Indiana. From a fighting top such a@ storm of lead could be driven upon these great guns as would make it impossible for men to work them. Therefore, it will be one of the first duties of a warship to shoot away with its heavy gvns the military mast of its adversary. As one well-directed shot will send the mast tumbling, it is not probable that any ship will come out of an engagement with its military mast standing. The shooting away of the mast will, of course, mean the death of every man in the fighting tops. Men sent there will know as they climb the dark ladder to their stations that they go to almost certain death, and will have only one duty before them, to kill as many of the enemy as they can before the crash ecmes. Men who in turrets and sponsons below are handling the great guns have every hepe of life and victory before them, but the men in the tops go to their duty with no such hopes and expectations. To man the fighting tops in action will be a kind of martyrdom especially hard to endure. To perform deeds of valor in the face of centending armies or to suffer with forti- tude in the gaze of admiring thousands one thing; to climb up calmly inside a steel post and work away at such an un- peetical mechanical device as a rapid-fire or machine gun until such time as it may please the enemy to blow one into “king- dem come” ts quite another thing. Yet the modern man-of-warsman ts en- thusiastic over the advantages of the mili- tary mast and would obey an order to man a gun in the fighting top as readily as he weuld the le call which sui it ints mn bug! ic! immons him LATEST AND BEST Approaching Trial of the New War- ship Brooklyn. ADVANCED TYPE OF ARMORED CRUASER Great Expectations of Her Designers and Builders. > HIGH SPEED LOOKED Se ee FOR From the Philadelptila Press, August 16. LL IS IN READI- ness for the trial of the armored cruiser Brooklyn. The big man-of-war will turn her prow down the Delaware river next Saturday and start for the Massachu- setts coast, where on some day the follow- ing week, probably the 26th or 27th, she will have offictal pre- liminary acceptance According to the present program of the Brooklyn will arrive at trial. the Cramps, Poston Sunday evening or Monday morn- ing. If the weather is good Monday the vessel will be given a contractor's trial an@ may repeat this next day. With fair weather Wednesday and a smooth sea, the Brooklyn will go on her official trial and will break the speed record for vessels of her type. Must Make Twen One Knots. Naval experts predict that she will make at least twenty-two knots, and will inci- dentally earn a bonus of something like 100,000 for her builders. Her contract calls for twenty-one knots. The course over which the Lrooklyn will run hes between Cape Ann and Cape Por- poise. It is 41.5 knots long. It will be marked by seven vessels. The trial will consist of two runs of about two hours each. Am Advanced Type. As the old Brooklyn, of war fame, was an advanced type of the ship of her day, so is the Brooklyn of today the leader in modern naval architecture. The Brooklyn has been under construction for about three year She is something Ike the cruiser New York, but is heavier, has a more powerful armament and better pro- tection for her men nd guns. On account of these advan she has been face- Uously called the ater New York. The displacement of the Brooklyn is 9,130 tons. The Brooklyn's main battery con- sists in part of eight eight-inch guns. Here are her dimensions Length on load water 400.50 ; beam, extreme, 64.65 feet; draft, mean, nor- mal, 24 feet; displacement, normal, 9,271 tons; displacement, trial, tons; indi- cated horsepower, 16, speed in knots, per hour, 21; total coal pacity, 1, ons; coal carried on normal displacement, 0 tons. The Brooklyn is provided with twin serews. Her engines, four in number, are of the vertical, triple expansion type. The forward engines are so arranged as to be capable of being readily uncoupled from the after engines,ewhich permits of cru ing at low speeds. There are seven bol five double-ended and two single-ended. The vessel carries two military masts with fighting tops and is free from rigging. The boats are stowed clear of the blasts of the guns. Two lifetoa are so carried that they may be readily lowered under all conditions of weather. Protection of Hull, The hull is protected by means of a steel protective deck worked from stem to stern, and supported by heavy beams. The bot- tom edges of this deck amidships are tive feet six inches below the twenty-four foot waterline, the top of the deck rising to this waterline at the center of the vessel. The armor is six inches thick on the slopes of the deck over the machinery and boilers. It is three inches thick on the horizontal portions, Forward and abaft the machinery and boilers to stem and to stern, the deck is, at the thinnest part, two and a half inches in thickne Protection of the hull from injury to the waterline region ts afforded by means of an armored belt, three inches in thickness, extending the length of the machinery and boiler space, and in depth from four feet rs, above the twenty-four-foot waterline to four feet three inches below that line. ‘The space between the armored deck and the deck above for a length corresponding to that of the inner bottom is subdivided by watertight bulkheads into thirty al bunkers, exclusive of coffer dams passages. The space forward and al these bunkers is subdivided by watertight bulkheads for stores, A conning tower, eight inches in thick- ness, is carried in a commanding position, having a tube to the protective deck five inches in thickness, The battery of the vessel is composed of eight 8-inch breech loading rifles of thirty- five caliber; twelve 53-inch breec! rifles, rapid fire guns; twelve rapid fire guns; four I-pounder rapid fire guns; four machine guns. The 8-inch guns are mounted in four bar- bette turrets, placed one forward and one aft on the center line of the vessel; and one on either side of the vessel amidships. Two of these turrets are operated by elec- tricity and two by steam. The use of electricity for turning turrets is an innovation in American naval archi- tecture, and its trial on the Srooklyn will be watched with interest by the entire naval world. The guns in the turrets on the center line of the ship have a train of 310 degrees; those in the side turrets fire from right ‘ahead to right astern, or are able to train through an arc of IS) degrees each. The armor forming the barbettes, which protects the carriages, platforms and tur- ret machinery, is eight inches in thickness for a portion equivalent to the train of the «uns, the remaining portions ‘ing reduced to four inches in thickness. The ammunt- tion hoist for each turret is protected by three-inch armor tubes, which also support the turrets. The armor of the turrets is 5 1-2 inches in thickness. The five-inch guns are protect- ed by fixed segmental shields, five inches in thickness. The crews of these guns are further protected from explosive shells by splinter bulkheads, 1 1-2 inches in thick- v 8. The torpedo outfit consists of five torpedo tubes, one im the bow and two on each + six torpedoes and an allowance of gun « ton for mines and miscellaneous purposes. The ship was designed to have a radius of action at full speed of 1,758 knots, and a radius of action at 10 knots of 6,88 knots. Her complement of officers and men wil} Snookson—T've got a bet with my friend Brown here about that satirical poem of yours in this week's Gadfly; I seid I couldn't for the life of me see any point in it, and he declares there is no point. Now, which of us two is right?”