The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 1, 1898, Page 25

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY. B art of the where wher ior to the and h in pounds hour of of 200 upon midst_of the the San Lo- the telephone The War De- itting its terse, to when In ives we filled a heavy of with pounds the of redwoods but a few roots, and on pipe eor from the and terror at ur supe his wife and The win- idence were shattered. 1 and none knew how one ever knows just explosions oceur. u that they We when his a local company 1se sent a man stigate pre i SRS S~ N sturned with all the able upon the subject y months were spent building with the ic believe in new 'd against powder zo Can: re, the r 1 ned in the warm sunlight 1ilkmai tins s buildings have b ly corrugated, ar ptive security in tree and shrub. >d fron, ny > with dec se of stupefied v, where 1 house. hillside orders , and f gravel tones about .y n on whose oulders rests at s the gravest of responsibilities who just mow has no time for ) is W, C. ston, a native son, born in the Santa Cruz redwoods, and superintendent of the m . Peyton has a brother to aid him. it early dawn, high noon or mid- t their watchful e are ever on alert, their unceasing. m the most xperiment to the operations, they per- guide and direct, and man on the place could not perform st of conduc et no men could be v of their employ: on ttention the part the careless handling nce in some fe familiarity and their ficed. agine that h pos- -n find place in their be so en- grossed with the ccessful incorpora- tion of explosives as to think only of perfect chemical results, but such is in very truth the devotion of the Pey- tons to their perilous vocation. repeated the superinten- tc a question. ** mc than in a flourmill. The dvst of »u know, is capable of causing a n. In our business, cau- afeguard. Carelessness onsible for the disasters I do not think more thirteen men have been killed in thirty vears, a small proportion ared with those that meet death that take place than be reassuring, but ubborn for one to take much comfort from them. And the facts are that a slip of the hand, a fragment of metal where metal must not be, one little error of judgment, a second’s miscalculation, and this Val- ley of the Shadow could have been wiped from the earth’s surface as ef- fectually as a schoolboy would sponge a sum of arithmetic from his slate. e5onertse Drawn upin battle array with mouths toward the forest, into which they beich their thunder, were the rifled cannon, an eight-inch, six-inch and six- rible eatthquake. demolition of the works. The N search for bodies. beyond re were hurr; be no delay pos 000000 OCOOC0O0000000O0000C0000000000 0000000000000000000000006000000000 EXPLOSION OF THE WORKS. ITHIN a few hours after the accompanying article was put into type a series of explosions occurred at the powder works, killing outright eleven men, totally destroying the nitro-glycer- ine storage-house with its contents, wrecking powder buildings and interior powder magazine and shaking the city of Santa Cruz, some three miles distant, as though by a ter- .xplosions occurred in rapid which spread quickly to the many buildings, places of the employes near by and for a time threatened the entire val Reserves were summoned by bugle call themselves into two squads, one squad to fight the fire, the other to Al but one of the unfortunate victims were burned and mutilated Meanwhile along the roadway the wiv ing with blanched. tear. matic powder plant escaped by a miracle and there will in filling the Government's three million pound order. Construction of new buildings was at once commenced. yontaneous combustion in the nitro-glycerine plant is the sup- -d cause of the disaster; but there work of a Spanish emissary, who had ma of the guards and private detectiv Governor Budd had for some qays strong of a large force of United States Deputy Government's property, as the destruction of the works at this time would be a greater loss than the sinking of a cruiser. 0000000000000 0C0CC00000000000000000 stained TESTING principal ones in use are composed of guncotton "C alone or in combination with bodfes, the and nitro-gly'cerine, either function of which is to reduce the vio- lence of the action. The component [ the smokeless succession burned followed by the fire, dwelling and divided s and children of employes ces to the scene of death. also a rumor that it was the aged to elude the vigilance s on duty. urged the appointment Marshals to guard the COOCOOCO0OT000000CO000000CCCO0O00000 pounder, the former weighing 30,000 They carry respectively pro- jectiles weighing 250, 100 and ‘6 pounds, two men are constantly at work hing and cleaning their brass and ], for moisture gathers quickly in e depth of the wooded canyon and it takes much muscle to keep the weapons of war in condition. The six-inch can- non has already taken human life. Its first blood was shed on the deck of the Olympia. The man wi fired forgot te inspect the recoil cylinder, which was empty of glycerine. One day last week two workmen were busily engaged on the earthen breast- works into which the projectiles plow their way when practice is going on. They had somehow understood or- ders as to the time of rep: bank of earth. A 250-pound proj awaited the touch that would send it through the screens into the breast- work beyond. E hing was in read- iness for the test. The signal “Fire” was upon the lips of the superinten- dent when a premonition of scmething wrong stayed the command. He walk- ed to the other side of the wor where two laborers, unconscious of their peril, 3 shoveling the earth high in air. miraculous things happe ¢ in this world of our literally digging their own rned in time and led graves, were back to safety. A RS “Velocity and pressure,” explained the superintendent, “are the two main requisites in proving powder. The Gov. ernment is vi specific in its contrac It demands that when fired under ser vice conditions, in the gun for which it is intended, powder must give to the projectile a muzzle velocity of at least a certain number of feet per second without producing a pressure of more than a certain number of tons to the square inch. For modern guns the velocity required varies from 2000 to 2300 feet in a second, and the pressure is not allowed to exceed fifteen tons to the square inch. In some of our guns of the present day the amount of en- ergy stored up in the powder charge is so tremendous as to be almost in- credible. The limit of energy upon the projectile cannot be estimated, so vast are the possibilities. “For example, I may cite the Ore- gon’s thirteen-inch rifles. Five hun- dred and fifty pounds of powgder in these guns impart to an eleven-hun- dred pound shot a velocity of 2100 feet per second, and the energy of the pro- jectile is nearly thirty-four thousand- foot tons. This power is sufficient to lift such a vessel as the Oregon eight feet out of the water. “Of military smokeless powders the parts are mixed in the presence of a liquid which has a solvent action upon the guncotton. A dough-like substance is the result. This ms: is placed in a press similar to that used in making macaroni, from which it emerges squeezed into flat ribbon shape. After running it between rollers to obtain the proper thickness it is cut into grains and dried.” In answer to a question the superin- tendent said that nitro-glycerine is not used in the manufacture of smokeless powder. “It is not adapted for sporting pur- poses, though an admirable component of mili v wer. In a shotgun its combustion is not complete and the fumes from it give very violent head- aches to the shooter. Only the finest of gun-cotton is used, the other ingri dients being quite small in quantity. The most of our cotton comes from Geor; i “Those screens hetween the cannon and the breas s are electric chro- raphs, one hundred feet apart from other and the cannon and they register the time of the projectile’'s flight with absolute accur » “And absolute accuracy what 2" - h part of a second.” Given th s modern meth- ods.and the t of 1776 and what may not Columbia do.when the enemy con- fronts her? In the keg shops where stecl kegs are being made by many thousands to ship powder in to Washington; the work rooms where gun-cotton is made sol- vent by ether, dried by alcohol, pressed by hydraulic power and finally leaves the machines like an endless rope of perforated .1a .roni of diam ter to fit the guns, then chopped into a tray and dried; the dry house where powder from the prismatic press is dried and the combined odors of nitro-glycerine, ether, pear oil and the heat are over- powering if one dares to venture within the compartments where the trays are shelved; the shotgun cartridge factory, where the black powder must be con- ducted like water through a pipe, so dangerous is it to work with, so quick of ignition when confined, and where, the inky stream turned on and off at a faucet, the cartridge shells are packed, sealed, boxed, labeled, the ca- pacity of the cartridge machines in Joading being fifty thousc.d per day; the machine shops; laboratory with its delicate mechanism for testing velocity; the great tanks of gun-cotton in the pulper house, where combustion is cer- tain unless the cotton is provided with a certain amount of moisture daily, be- ing so impregnated with free acid as to ignite readily until washed in the tanks awaiting it; the houses where R = —= | = charcoal is burned—madrono for blast- ing and low-grade powders, willow and alder for better grades—the red and brown coals by superheated steam, a delicate operation; the making of wads; the blending room with its machine like a merry-go-round, from the compart- ments of which the prisms are sorted and made into bag sections according to weight; the house where nitro- glycerine, mixed with acetone to insure perfect :ty. is stored—all this and more is kaleidoscoped In my memory, for each process is wondrously inter- esting in its way. s But there is one impression more vivid than the others which I shall think of and shudder at so long as I live. A great machine at work seems almost human, but this creature of iron, fiendish in its power, sullen in its movement as a lion pacing in dull rage the confines of its prison—this thing of monster proportions, traveling its circle like a horrible juggernaut, is neither beast nor human, nor yet ma- chine. “We call it the wheelmill,” said Su- perintendent Peyton. “There are four others on the place, ang the men are blasting rock to make a bed for two more, to be placed in a granite house. Each of these wheels weighs 15,000 pounds; the new ones will weigh 20,000, solid iron, connected like these by a short axle and running on an iron bed. Powder must be thoroughly incorpor- ated. Placed upon this bed the char- coal and saltpeter are ground to the fineness of powder. This becomes high- ly explosive. To keep it together and render it safe a certain moisture must be main- tained. Should the man at the wheel neglect his duty—should he let the powder reach the explosive degree of EXPLOSIVES NTA CRUZ NEW POWDER FOR THE ARMY AND NAVY WITH THE combustion of-the first two. The com- position of sulphur and saltpeter is fixed, whereas charcoal is a mixture of many chemical compounds. An al- most indefinite series of charcoals can be obtained, from wood to a nearly pure carbon, each of which, made into pow- der, differs in quickness and energy and the manner in which that energy manifested. are variations of the same thing, is Black and brown powder the LOADING A DYNAMITE CARTRIDGE CARTRIDGE READY TO dryness—there fvould be an explosion sufficient to wreck the place. This ma- chine has killed two men. It is hard to tell by just what act of carelessness. One of them may have miscalculated the time for adding moisture, or in cleaning this plow which scrapes the powder from the sides he may have used a metal instead of wooden instru- ment. It takes very little friction to cause a spark, and the tiniest of sparks will do the mischief. *“In black gunpowder, as all the world knoWws, there are three components— charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter, the latter supplying the oxygen producing rall brown being developed from the black. “Yes, we use materials in big quanti- ties here. That lead-lined brick tank over there holds 20,000 gallons of alco- hol. Sulphur by the shipload comes to us from Japan and Sicily, saltpeter in hundreds of tons from India.” S RS One woman—such a mite of a woman she is, to have so much bravery—earns her living at the mill. “Do you ever feel afraid?” I asked, watching her deft fingers as they pasted labels to cartridge boxes at the rate of 1000 a day. She smiled up at me with blue eyes, her cheeks flush- BIG GUNS. . ing at the unusual experience of seeing a visitor where visitors are not al- lowed. “Oh, no,” she said, simply. “At first I was, a little. But you get used to it after a while. My husband is the gate keeper. An accident? Well, it it should come we would all go together —our little boy and ourselves.” A black-eyed lad, noy pausing in his work of loading layers of pressed pris. vder, answered my question. “‘Afraid?” he repeated cheerfully, “No. A fellow can’t die more than once, you know. Besides, you gat used %0 it and don’t think much.about get- ting killed" when you've handled the stuff as long as I have. The assistant chemist smiled at the suggestion that a powder mill was a dangerous place in which to live out one’s life. “It is more the idea of it than the reality,” he remarked. “I got used to it after a while.” An old man turned a bearded face to the light and laughed good naturedly. “I've worked in this powder mill since the War of the Rebellion broke out,™ said he, “Does that look as though it were a dangerous calling? I guess T'll live to see America whip Spain.” In a’room where brown powder ig pressed into layers, and its dust, rising thickly, is so inflammable that the workmen must wear wooden pegs in their shoes to avoid friction, a sturdy Hibernian showed a set of gleaming teeth in a smile that sent.the powder dust in flakes from a face the or of the layers he was handling. “Dangerous? Why of course not,” he assured me, “not half so much as a sawmill or a limestone quarry, or a common road, for that matter, for a man who worked here thirty years was killed one day on the way home by a fall from his horse. But we are care- ful, to be sure: very careful since two men were blown up in the very cor- ner where you --~ <‘anding now, not wishing to frighten you,” he added kindly. . In the cartridge factory something had been said about bicycle riding. “T could niever make use of a wheel,” remarked the superintendent. 3 “Why not?” I asked. “Because,” said the man who lives, as it were, over a volcano of the deadliest explosives, “I think that bicycles are *o%v e snows that th ch shows that there is everythin in the point of view. i s time officially set for the s opening of the doors of the rd of Labor Employment’s ice on Mare Island is 9 a. m., J s of business now portals apart very Lieutenant Braune: assistant and his a are all very nearly ain influential indi- HE vidual is | rly supposed to be in a whirlw says Lieu- e he installs me in rm chair le the office table, “there have been from one hun- dred to fi number here ery we ay znd even on Sun- days the offi kept open to stamp | the cards sful applicants, so | we hav ply shed’ wight| along. bout the value of ad- ines in the two Re- papers bf San Fran- zht dow pon us a which has been al- I overwhel and there are no| of ¢ Our mornings are tively quiet, since we hs valanche human signs from the surrounding country to d with and can put a good deal of time! n on clerical work; but when the boats | egin to land people from the city then | . real business of the day besgins. The probl war which has sud- | denly confronted us during the past two months has made necessary the smployment of a large additional force | pec | fitting | pos! PR rrrrRRRRRRCIcIllIllrloclololclobololelolclololololclolololololololofolololololololololofolololofolololofololololololcloJoloJolooloJolooloJofololc] ® ® ’ ‘ ® ® ®® ®©Ee® of men in this big Government work- shop at Mare Island, and already about 1300 new names have appeared on the pay roll, making the present working population over 2000 American citizens. “And American ¢ s they every one of them are or th ] the ghost of a ehiance to even put in an application for employment, unless indeed they served in the army, navy or marine corps during the civil war, or have served this country in one of these lines for a period of twelve years ince. mAt the present time although any one filling the above requirements has a right to regi : probability of securing employment un- less one is skilled in some trade es- Jly pertaining to the building and of ships. And the man who aspires to be a laborer or helper only is simply wasting time and ink in ap- plying for such a position since veter- ar of the civil war fill nearly all such jons. All the Board of Labor Employment S| sork is done under navy-yard order No. 26, revised, which declares that every applicant ‘‘must present in per- son to the board at the navy-yard in wWhich he desires employment, an ap- lication, L.’I)l;\z;cxity for the work he desires, his character and habits of industry and gobriety.” The board furnishes the preseribed blank forms, enabling the applicants to carry out the provisions r there is very little | and evidence to establish his | of this paragraph, and it is because of these forms that Lieutenant Braun- ersreuther and his clerks are about the hardest worked of any of the Govern- ment officials, even at the present time, when they are all working harder than they have done for many years. The whole matter is managed in the most regular, business-like and impar- tial manner imaginable, the only “pre- ferred” persons being veterans of the Civil War, and men who have served twelve years in some branch of the fighting force of the United States, and it seems as if no possible misconcep- tion or trouble could follow such plain directions, simply and honestly carried | out, but a day spent as a volunteer aid to kindly and efficient Lieutenant Braunersreuther shows one the fallacy of this idea. The 12 o'clock ferry-boat comes swimming into the small dock, and from it there marches a regiment of | children laden with pails, and baskets, and lunch boxes, and paper bags, and milk cans. “Those are some of the children of schedule A and schedule B,” explains an assistant. “They are bringing their fathers’ lunches,” and looking up the tree-shaded avenues I behold platoons of men marching down to meet the | baby ravens who have comce to feed them. : Y “They will have to ‘bolt’ like Pip himself to-day,” he continues, “for 1,100 of the men are to be paid off this noon hour, €0 as not to interfere with work- ing time, and that won’t leave them many minutes for lunch.” And just then the doorway is filled with the am- ple and dignified form of the smiling lieutenant. “We have an hour’s respite now,” he says. “Would you like to go up to the paymaster’s and see how much Gov- ernment money can change hands in half an hour?” ‘We go out through the barnlike store- room to the paymaster's quarters, the drive and veranda in front of which are already packed with men in work- ing garb. Each of them carries in his hand an oblong bit of pale blue paper. The side window of Colonel Barry’s office locks out into a mass of bowery green, and the front gives a view of the quiet, waiting patiently their different fore- men'’s orders to “line up.” Inside the office are big shallow boxes covering the tables and the floor, each full of small envelopes of stout manila paper, sealed and standing bolt upright. On each of these envelopes is a number, a name and a statement of cash, and " they are passed, a dozen or so at a time, by the officer in charge of them to an officer who stands at the shelf and hands them to their rightful own- ers. The department clerk sits on a high stool and calls a name and a number; the “gang foreman” stands outside and watches that the right man answers to orderly crowd of workers | the summons; the bit of blue paper, which is a statement of account and a receipt previously signed by the work- er, is exchanged for its proper cash- laden envelope, and the moves on, each man that passes out of sight the happier for the possession | of two weeks' pay and the “overtime,” | which counts “time and a half,” and being frequent in these days of hurry, swells the amount gratifyingly. In a little more than thirty minutes by the watch $64,000 is divided among 1140 men. Then the pay-window is closed, the tired wage disbursers sink into chairs and wipe their perspiring brows. I hurry back to my post of observa- tion and arrive there just in time to escapethecrowd of applicants for work. They swarm off the ferry-boat and up the stairs to the office door. The space outside the separating rail is packed almost instantly; the doorway is full of shoving shoulders and eager | faces; the landing is a jam of anxious humanity and the stairs groan under their burden of impatient feet. The lieutenant advances smiling to the fray and with a few concise direc- tions evolves semething like order out of this animate chaos. Half of them —poor fellows—have toilfully traveled here for the purpose of securing blanks and information which they could have got at home by the expenditure of 1 cent invested in a postal card. The directions accompanying the procession | UNDREDS WORKING IN THE MARE ISLAND NAVY YARD : d@'3@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@2@@@@@@@ { blanks are plain and simple enough for | even a child to understand and follow, but it is astonishing to see into how intricate a tangle carelessness, or ig- norance, or attempted duplicity, can snarl the straightforward statements. Some bring these docwments rein- forced by letters from Congressmen and | Senators and others high in authority, | but these “extras” serve no purpose whatever. “It is a fair field and no favor here,” says the lieutenant, “dand all this pil- ing up of recommendations is a sheer | waste of time. We receive and take account of only these official blanks properly filled out, and anything else is waste paper as far as this office is con- cerned.”™ | As if to prove his words a small, | hard-faced man makes his appearance | at this juncture, elbowing his excited | way through the throng with an im- | portance of manner that makes even the boldest fall away before him. as if, indeed, he were a mounted policeman. He bears an open letter in his hand, and with a leok of triumphant pride essays vainly to give it into the keep- ing of the head of the board. It is written on the executive mansion sta- tionery, and the little man says: “This is from President McKinley, sir. He knows me. I would like you to put it with the application that I filed the other day,” but the lieutenant shakes | his very decided head. i “Not allowed,” he answered briefly, “but a man with a letter like that need not waste his time waiting for a job that may never come here at Mare Is- land. It's a kind of civil service up here, you know, but if you take that sheet of paper down to the city among the politicians you won’t need be out of work long.” And_with this crumb of encourage- ment President McKinley’s protege A parts, somewhat humbled, but still hopeful, while the smile disappears from the lieutenant’s face as he glances over the next lot of papers handed to him and then looks the man who brought them sternly in the eyes. “The signatures to this trade and character certificate are forged,” he says quietly, “and you have laid your- self liable to serve a term in San Quen- tin. If T were you—," but the detected fraud is already slinking through the crowd without even an attempt at ex- planation. ¥ Forgery of this kind is common and there are certain enterprising individu- als in the pretty town of Vallejo who for two bits or so will fill out certifi- cates galore for utter strangers. One man, depending on the fact that his is only one in a erowd of strange faces, secures his blanks and brings them back in the course of half an hour nicely filled out and signed by parties in Salt Lake City. Another claims to have made a trip to Oakland and back, irrespective of car and boat time-tables, in an hour’s time, and produces the sig- natures of two of Oakland's well-known business men in proof of his assertion., Others, like the first culprit men- tioned, bring certificates signed by the proprietors of the Union Iron Works, not knowing, as does the board, that these gentlemen never deviate from their rule of non-recommendation.