The Erosion Of Guns (94477977-b740-4153-8a76-51eb6437c334)

HUDSON MAXIM, Brooklyn, N. Y.-Immediately after the creation of the Naval Consulting Board, Admiral Strauss, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance of the Navy, told members of the Board that the most important problem for the scientists to solve was erosion in large guns. The Navy, for years, had been working on the problem with marked suceess, but there was much yet remaining to be accomplished. As Chairman of the Committee on Ordnance and Explosives of the Naval Consulting Board, I communicated with several experts in the manufacture of steel, principal among whom was Prof. Howe. He generously agreed to help in every way possible, and the work that he has done and the time that he has spent upon it can he appreciated only by reading his paper. Prof. Howe asked for some rings. from a, certain 14-in. gun which Admiral Strauss had mentioned in particular, and in which, he had informed us, at each shot the bore of the gun, was enlarged about 0.001 in.,' and that after a relatively small number of rounds it was considerably eroded. It has puzzled scientists for a long time to account for the peculiar erosive effect produced by the powder gases in a gun, arid: what Prof. Howe has done in his paper is worthy of Sherlock Holmes. He is a veritable Sherlock Holmes of science.