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Newspaper Page Text
THE SUXDAY CAM,. 6 General Shaffer Discusses the tfew fortifications No seaport of the United States is mere strongly de fended than San Francisco is at the present moment, and yet the work is still go ing on. At the new battery which will shoot over Su tro's Baths and grounds we are preparing to mount more of the disappearing guns, with their own range-find ers; and on the cliffs bclozv the three dynamite guns concrete foundations are be ing laid for the first of a se ries that will constitute a water battery. The old fort at the Point may be removed and a pow erful water battery placed there. Rapid-fire guns will be mounted on Lime Point, below and to the west of the large disappearing rifles on the top of the cliff. Angel Island is being for tified, and the guns already delivered there will soon be mounted. HOW GREAT GUN PROTECT US. fy AY FRANCISCO is b«ing strongly foriiSc-d for the reason that it Is rapidly taking on an importance L^^ that few other American cities are 4^ likely to assume, vn the Atlantic coast are innumerable ports of easy «itry connected with all parts of the country by many lines of railroad. The loss of any one Eastern city would not be fatal, but the loss of San Francisco ¦would close the Pacific to the United States On the whole California coast there Is not another port qualified for the mobilization and cmbarkment of expedi tionary forces; added to this the large miratiT of Government Interests, the Mint, Subtreaeury. Custom-house, army headquarters, navy yard, dry docks, arsenal. quartermasters' warehouse, femokeless powder works, nitro-glycerin works end the Union Iron Works' ship yards, which are largely occupied with naval construction, make it essential that Fan Francisco should be protected beyond th*> possibility of a doubt. For this reason the iar.d defense* of San Francisco take on an interest that per tains to no other port. The manly art of ep'f -defense is in Its broader forms one of the first that should be instilled In the individual. The life that is not •worth protecting is not worth living, and the life that feels itself but feebly protected is not half lived. The national art of eelf-defense is *-hown and exemplified In its most per fect type by the new fortifications of San Franclfro, which lack nothing but com pletion as planned to make them the equal ¦ : any - • ' ai •. •. Ht^tsl In the early days of smoky powder and ehort ra^ge low-power guns it was neces sary to place thr-m as close as possible to the narrow passageway between Fort Point and U.me Point, and even then their '¦fficiency was so small that they fired all Centennial day at a hulk moored in the bay and finally had to have It demolished by a boatman with a giant powder car tridge to get It out of the way. The fort as then situated had only an end-on view of any vessel approaching the Golden Gate and could only fire upon her during the very few minute* that she would occupy in passing It. The present batferies ar« placed outside of the Golden Gate, where they command the whole Etretch of baylike indentation between the Cliff House and Point Bonita, and an incoming vessel of good epeed is broadside on to them for half an hour and In good range. The location of these runs which con stitute San Francisco's prlncplal sea coast defense is In the- midst of scenery more wild and ruggou than one who is used to only the gentle slopes of the eastern »nd cf the city can conceive. Commencing with the three great dyna mite guns on the crest of the Pr-sidio range, there is a long line of modern high-class disappearing cannon, placed Fide by side as closely as such compli cated and tremendous engines can be arranged, and reaching down to where the cliffs overhang the old brick fort that sets like a hinge on the southerly poet of the Golden Gate. Xearly a mile of Funs couchant, like panthers, resting on their pedestals and are ready at a touch to eprinjr yards Into the air. They overlook the parapet and discharge their roaring shell. th*n fly back Into conceal ment to be reloaded In safety by the gun ners. In the very brow of the cliff and at the head of the long line of runs are those wonderful machines which are the me chanical eyes and brains of the ci-ouch lng monsters below. The ran&e finders are the latest addition of science to the wisdom of machinery. Eyes they have that sweep the eea with a keenness out rivaling that of the eagle. A massive mechanical brain they have that works logarithms with the turn of a wheel and does spherical trigonometry with a lever and ratchet that merely clicks a few times and tells you the declination and right ascension proper for the gun In order to hit the ship on which the glassy eye of the monster is fixed. Three tons is the weight of this silent and Industrious cal culator. It is mounted on a heavy con crete base three feet in diameter and con sists of a giant theodolite, the telescope of which Is directed toward and kept fixed upon the vessel whose position it Is de sired to note. Attached to the. telescope, and moving not In unison but In syn chronism with It, Is a duplex panto srapblc arrangement of levers which mdl cate exactly the distance and direction of the object at which the observer Is look ing. From the range finder there run, like nerves in underground channels, bun dles of telegraph, telephone and indicator wires, and also speaking tubes, to the gunner at each of the big guns below. The ranger- finder Is situated in a room which has its floor about five feet below the level of the ground. The walls are of three-foot concrete, with a slit cut out of one corner which faces kp award and commands a sweep of 180 degrees. Over all is a roof of two teei or ooncrete, and on top of that Is about six feet of earth, making a sort of bomb-proof mound with no vulnerable opening but the eyellke slit that seems as though hidden by Its drooping concrete lids. In the fortress of the Presidio of San Francisco there are on the heights trim, long, neat looking -guns, so Bllm and dainty in their Hne3 that they remind you of the neatly rolled umbrella of a club man., • la all there are slxteea of these appa- rently slight and elegant weapons of de fense fin de slecle located upon their lone eminence. There is something; .lonely and dreary about the long guns up on the cliff that poke their lean muzzles out over the sea until their tips are lost in the fog that rises from. the warm water of the Japan current, washing the foot of the cliffs be neath them. They are distant and exclu- Bive, and each of them occupies as much room as two dozen guns of similar bore In the fort oa the water's edge, for dowa there they are socially lined up ff*e &g% at a trough, and in the cozy corner* at the bastions a half dozen of them snuxrl* together. . There are already sixteen of the first class disappearing guns mounted, all of them over eight Inches In diameter and capable of throwing projectiles of from 600 to 1000 pounds' weight a distance of ten miles with a muzzle velocity of 2000 feet per second, and each pun can be load ed and discharged once every two min utes, giving from the battery a shot nearly every ten seconds. In addition to this is a deck-piercing battery of thirty or more large mortars of the new breech loadir.g type and In every way the equal of the guns for accuracy and rapidity of fire, except for the rrason that thei necessartly high trajectory causes their accuracy to be more affected by wlr.dajro and elusive travel of the objective target. On a sixty-acre tract of land lying in the rear of the Sutro Baths and which was recently deeded by the city and county of San Francisco to the Govern ment of the United States there Is being erected a new and separate battery which Is to prevent a hostile vessel from lying off south of the Cliff House and dropping fireworks on the roofs of quiet dwellings and busy stores, as would have been pos sible at the time that the Spanish war broke out. Across the narrows on -J>e top of Lime Point bluff is a battery of six high-power modern guns placed at an elevation of •ver 400 feet, which makes it th^ highest sea coast fcrt in the world and far above the angle at which any vessel could ele vate her heavy gur.s. Below, this \nd to the westward there Is now being em placed a defensive armament that is a novelty In shore defense, being entirely composed of light rapid-fire guns for th» purpose of sweeping the decks of In coming hostlles and clearing off any sharpshooters who ' might attempt to pick off the gunners and range-finder* among the cllfftops on shore. All about the mortar batteries oa the Presidio heights and around soire of t • rifles there are planted masses of ever green trees for the purpose of masking the defenses and preventing gunners on, the sea from obtaining any definite point for a target. The position of a vessel having been fixed by the range-Cnden, she Is lo cated as being In a certain one of the small squared Into which the harbor's mouth Is arbitrarily divided on the gun ner's chart. The horizontal anglo to which the .gun must be turned oa Its vertical axis and the elevation In degrees to he given its muzzle in order to gtv« the projectile the proper trajectory to land It within that square have already been figured by the engineer. When the gunner receives from the range-finder the number of the square, he turns to his table, reads off the number of degrees to which each axi3 of the gun must b» turned, moves the gun by its .-ydraolic machinery until each of the Indicators on the degree circles are at the points called for in the table, then raises and fires the gun without having even scea the ship he Is aiming to destroy. San Francisco should be proud of, what has been done and what Is planned* to be done for her by the Government. The security that it afford 3 to all cannot but help In the general development of ta« city.