The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 12, 1897, Page 20

CAPTAIN | IS WHO IN THIS DIFFICULT PIECE OF CAMERA WORK THE SA FRANCIS )0 CALL, SUN Y, SEPTEMBER 12, 1897. 52N N S by Captain Rivers o takes an intetest in tempting it. hazy. When the w: heavy, the light is likely to time. apprenticeship and through the Straits and the expenss Wt In fact, the ch small scale. wanted, so Captain At this mome! for a long time. The last time SOME STRANGE OLD GUNS THAT WERE They Are at Present Used for': Ornaments on the Parade 1 Grounds Mason. Within the area of Fort Mason, a mili- | tary reservation in San Francisce, av distributed as mere ornaments over its grass plats, there are at present eight cannon whose singular pattern, foreign origin and great age make them the most remarkable relics within the State of Cali- fornia, as they are beliaved to be the old- | est guns in the United States. Of these guns six are large fortification pieces and two are small, for field uses. | The years of the casting of the larger ones are in raised letters upon the breeches and | these show that their manafacture b longs to the seventeenth century, the old- est gun havinz been casi in 1673, the voungest in 1693. Tradition about the fort has it that these pieces of ordrance were made in old Bpain. They were certainly brought to California to fortify the Presidio of San Francisco in behalf of the Spanish King years before the despised Yankee invaded the region and began to shape affairs in a fashion which led to the merging of the | yolitical power into that of his great nation east of the Rockies. That they are | Spanish productions no better evidence of such identity need be desired than the names and words upon their surfaces, while the dilettante in heraldry mizht find lasung entertainment in locating the houses to whom belong the armorial bear- | ings which form so conspicunus a feature of the elaborate ornamentation with which eech of the weapons is adorned. It is unfortunate t bat the authentic his- tory of the guns lies enveloped in dark- ness. The officers longest at the fort krow nothing of them. They say only “that they were here when we came,” and that is ull. Records, data of their past, there | appears to be none; and a movement 1o | send them to the Government museum in Washington has been given a setback be- cause the department refuses to admit them until some historical information concerning them has been secured. How this is to Le attained there is no | telling. To identify the arms upon lhe' guns, to effect translation of seemingly mystical words in old Spanish, to read through musty archives telling of the | curious relief which isembossed upon their times as far as could a smooth-bore mus- | of these guns under the offices of the | church, their mounting baneath the bless- | astical names of Labirgent Barbaneda and at Fort arrival of this gun or that, to follow them | perhaps into Mexico or Peru, would re- | quire an appropriation larger thana C yress pledged to economy would be wili- ing to make. The likelibood is that the suns will continue clouded by the obscur- ity concerning their past, which however | dense we know to be as strange as the | exteriors. The six large guns are of bronze; thev average 1500 pounds in weight, have a 6- inch Lore and throw a 24-pound ball. They were smooth bore, for the rotary or rifle bore was not introduced until after 1833, and they could send a ball with cer- {aicty of aim about 1000 yards, or four ket. They are from 10 to 12 feet long, their great elongation of muzzle beinz due to the erroneous idea then prevalent among gun founders that the throwing. power of the piece was increased by the length of the bore. That these cannon were rezarded as ob- jects of importance and distinction | amounting almost to veneration may be | told not alone from the ornate embellish- ment which spreads from vent to mouth, nor to the coats of arms I have mentioned, but from the fact that they each bear the | name of some city or eminent person, or of some saint. We caa fancy the casting ings of the priest. They were consecrated as instruments tremendous in the defense of his Most Catholic Majesty and of the holy church. Among tnese names the Sans predominate, There is the San Francisco, which now is mounted upon an old naval carriage, looking from a dis- tance 2s ominous as a Krupp gan, its mouth open toward the bay which bears its name. There is the San Pedro, the San Domingo, the San Martin, while only two are given the presumably non-ecclesi- Poder. There are two coats of arms upon each of the guns; the one on the breech is believed to be that of the reigning family of Spain in the year the gun was cast, to wit: Phillip I or Philiip 1V, the other arms being the maker of the gun. Both the breeches and the barrels are rimmead ith numerous raised bands, constitutinz marked variation from smooth surfaces of the ordnancte of modern makes are letters believed to spell the names of the manufacturers to whom belong the adjacent arma. These letters are often as remarkable the names, being inter- twined in different fashion; nor is the spelling of the same word, or even name, uniform on all the guns; the maker of the San Francisco h:s hisname spelled around as that gun Cabas me fecit; upon the Latir- gzend Barbaneda it isspelled Cubas me fesit The muker of the San Domingo, {ongest of the guns, was Taxeda Alexod, and it was cast in 1678 C:d Diosehdcvbas- met is the lettering which spelis the name | of the maker of the San Martin, whose production belongs to 1684, while the Labirgend was made in 1633. But the most remarkable derangement of the alphabet appears on the San Pedro and the Poder, two guns which stand on either side of the entrance gate to the fort, which were cast in 1673, but the names of whose makers cannot be told for the reason thattheir barrels are buried partially in the earib. Midway upon each of these guns and upon the upper surface is a tablet upon which in raisea the perfectly | Circling the end of the muzzles | the | capitals appear the foliowing: On the San Pedro— GOVERNAN DOLO~ ORESDEL\ RE ALAVDECIA DELIMA On the Poder— At a first glance these appear as unin- telligib’e words, but are the simplest thing in the world to decipher by one at all famitiar with the Spanish languace. Both are, of cou-se, the same. aithough spelied d fferendy. The differen how- ever, are errors. By straighten‘ng out the preceding in- seription it will appear: GOVERNANDOLOSSENORESDELAR EALAUDIENCIADELIMA. Dividing this in certain places the fol- lowing Spanish seitence is the result: Governando los Senores de la Real Audienc a de Lima. La Raal Audiencia is a body of Judges appointed as a Supreme Court and having much thesame power as our Grand Jury. From the inscription it would appear that this gun is at the servics of the Grand Jury and that they can use it to govern the country and carry out their laws. | The fact that the city of Lima is men- tioned would indgicate that the gun had once done duty there. o It will be noticed that there are differ- ence: in the \wo inscriptions. Butany one famliar with were made will know that gunmakers | we e not literary men. The d ferences ‘ are due to ignorance, and it is plamn tha | they were intended to be what the in | ser.ption can Le deciplieced to be in good Spanish. | These guns were not cast as cannon now ’are under the Rodman theory, with the | internal cavity already in them, cooled | from the inside outward by a water core, | but they were cast a eolid frustum of a | com: and afierward bored out with a bor- | ing rod. The model of the gun was built | up by wrapping a long stick uf wood evenly | with a rope, covering this with clay until | the model was :haped. tion was secured by carving the designs on the model in wax, which was then melted out in drying tbe moid of sand, which was subsequently packed about the model. The metal used in these gunsis of an unknown composition. As to when these guns reached Califor- nia only conjecture is possible. There were feur presidios under the old Spanish regime; those of San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Diego. These were the neadquarters of the mili- g 3P CABASMEFECIT AD.1679 SAN FRANGISCO — T = s Ever since Cape Horn’s existence has bee Artists have gone down therz 3 ¢ an actual reproduction of the spot did not exist un A reproduction of this crawing is given her Horn really looks like. known in ali the world. Everybody who can rea famous, but there seems to be so Why would it not be an easy matter to mal outside of the photographic ones, and they alone ar In the first place, it is not alw miles away. Storms nearly always prev. able, the chances are thers will be no camere al Photographically, ditions a plate exposed on Cape Horn would chances are that the water in the foregroun To give an idea of what an Of course, if some of the world” be opportunity. Under board ship and trust to The picture was made on t port about a year ago and arrive latitude and when it was winter here. The weather was unusually mild, and the surl Rivers says that he never saw it There was not the suggestion of haze ! 2 sailed his ship not more than about six miles from land. th of the Horn a bank of clouds came up in the east. and threw the headland of Cape Horn into strong relief. Rivers exposed his plate and the result was a perfect picture. evelop his own plate, so did not know the resuit and when the ship was a little west by sou were almost pure whitz As it happened, though, Captain Rivers did not d te bearing the image was carried to Nzw York The plate was then developed and the result is even more land perfectly and somehow seems to depict the The pla Francisco, arriving here only a few daysago. than one would expect. sentiment with which we associate the locality. 3 : im Rivers passed ths Horn with his camera he was not able to se= it at all. the times when the guns | The ornamenta- | i the ship A. J. Ropss, was developed. it. ater is comparatively calm ther: dry winds and clear weather no ship would dare venture be poor and so make a picture impossible. working before the mast. of Magellan. ould amount to thousands of dollars. ance did come to Captain Rivers, Ropss nt Capt It shows the contour of the Capta and some have been fortunate enough to til a few days ago. fifteen times more, the whoie covering a period of nearly forty years. Cape Horn once. And hesaid he had tried to see it. dangerously close, but always met disappointment. 3 Why couldn’t Cape Horn be seen from a steamer which could rup in close unless there happened to be a gale blowing? Because, as it happzns, steamers do not round Cape Horn as a general thing, but run From the foregoing it will be seen that to make a photograph of Caps Horn the first essential would ordinary circumstances all that the photographer can do is to take his camera on luck. The chance may not come, but it may. or the picture could not be reproduced here. captzin has b.en an enthusiastic photographer for some time, although he does all his work on a face of the water as smooth as the bay. <0 smooth during all the years of his life at sea. in the atmosphere and the wind was just where it was AT LAST A PHOTOGRAPH OF CAPE HORN HAS BEEN TAKEN A A A A A n known efforts have been made to get a picture of It. secure a few rough sketches, but This was when a negative, made ewith, so that all may form a perfect idea of what Cape The southernmost point of South America is, for a piece of barren Iaqd. the best d knows of Cape Horn and for some mysterious reason Of course the great writers of sea stories have done their share to make the spot ms= reason deeper than all this. ke a picture of Cape Horn? There are a dozen reasons e almost enough to deter the camera operator from at- says possible to see Cape Horn even though the ship is only a few ail at that end of the world, and the atmosphere is likely to be e is likely to be a fog. During the s=asons of the within sight of the Horn. At other times And then, when all conditions are favor- board the ship that happens to be there at the opportune the principal difficulty would be lack of light and contrast. Under ordinary con- raveal very little, if indeed it gave so much as an outline. The d would show and the distance appear only as a line of fog. achievement it is to see Cape Horn the experiznce of a sea captain who was in port a few months ago will suffice. This man had rounded Cape Horn ten times while serving his Since becoming captain he has brought his ship aroundi In all these trips he_ has never seen He had on more than one occasion run his ship in s big governments wanted a picture of Cape Horn, and did no mind the cost,-the picture could be obtained. A cutter with the proper apparatus cou}d be sent to the locality at a favorable time of the yzar, and then wait until an opportunity arose. This might be weeks The he last trip of the ship A. J. Ropes to New York. She sailed from this d at the end of the South American continent abtout midsummer in that Captain Late in the afternoon They and back past Cape Horn to San Y. T S B MADE IN SPAIN | But the Time Was When They tary when California was under that rule. Itis known that when the adobe-ficed ci<co fortifi had three 24-pound guns, and it is likely that all of these old nffairs were then in what is now the State. It is known that -until General McDowell gathered them together in 1833 they were | scattered hither and yon up and down the coast and one was not known from the other, Since, however, this collection of them has been made they have been mounted in Fort Mason, where, as I have said, they now are, mute objzcts of wonder and doubt, very strange 1o look upon, with their aristocratic filigrees and their mien of long-past superiority and | promp—th:ngs enigmatic to recard, yet | venerable, and threading such files of time anda old history, wortay to be studied and preserved. Jony E. BENNETT. One Woman Who Works a Gold Mine During a visit to Nevada not long ago 1 met a young lady of an exceptional turn of mind, and, upon closer acquaintance with her, learned many curious facts con- cerning her history. She is one of the leaders of the four hundred of Siiver City, | a prosperous mining town of Nevada, and while her early education was directed along pedagogical lines her natural bent made itself felt while she was still a very young woman. She had wielded the birch in a number of district schools, but a teacher’s life dia not satisfy her; she had learned the dress- maker’s trade, but the monotonous days of a seamstress held out few attractions for one of her peculiar disposition. In fact nothing in the line of woman’s work was found congenial, and it was a singu- lar coincidence that led to the discovery of her life occupation—mining. The Succor mine, long abandoned but of late being worked by two Austrians, was one day brought into great promi- nence by a rich strike by some persons who became fabulously rich, The town | fort called San Joaquin, of the San Fran- | cations, was repaired in 1794 it | into one place and the waste being dumped Were Used to Protect the | Highest Tribunal of Peru. at once bezan to boom and everybody was on the rush. Ore was taken out in enormous quantities, the pay ore going over into the ravine, where it accumulated in great heaps. Miss Lane was the daughter of a miner. She knew something about mines and dis- liking her profession of school-teaching Jecided to set to work at once assorting the waste dumps. Dressed in the miner's garb —jumper, overalls, bobnailed shoes and cap—she could be seen, day after day, seated on a pile of rock or moving about among the dumps, picking out the small bits of pay ore that had accidentally or otherwise tfallen into the waste. Many | aminer who knew her would toss her a specimen as he ran out his car. All this sortof work she kapt up for some time, when she decided to have a milling. Can you imagine her surprise when her first $200 came from the miil? Thus inspired and encouraged she contin- ued in the same way for an indefinite period, at last getting permission to work as many waste piles as she could manage, Finally she branched out independent- ly, and, locating a mine in the vicinity, began to operate it. Of course, the work in 8 new mine was harder than har first experience, but she soon mastered the trade, ana can now run a wheelbarrow as well as a man. And she is considered one of the best prospectors in the camp. Many are the tons of ore that she has taken out, and it is all good pay rock, too, for the millman tola me that he would rather have rock from her than from many men in the camp. He said that she *knows what she is about,” and can tell pay rock when she sees it. As for herself, she said that she had tried everything else, and had found mining the most con- genial and lucrative of all occupations. She has recently taken a partner, a girl chum, and they work together. Lituiay B. Purpy. ——————— The violence of the wind on the Gram- pian Hills is so great that on several occa- sions it has brought to a standstill traing traveling from Perth to the north. gL ABIRGEND BARBARREDA __ AMDS 1893