Visit to Woolwich Arsenal.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2935, 12 July 1878, Page 3

Visit to Woolwich Arsenal.

Two hundred and eighty acres of gun factories, foundries, ammunition-rooms, store-houses, pattern-rooms, carpenters' shops, sawmills, engine-houses—the Woolwich Arsenal —has just now a special interest for Englishmen, and for all who study the present condition of Europe. The works lie close to the dockyard on the Thames, whence the big Runs and other engines of war can be shipped to every part of the globe where Great Britain has a fort or an ironclad. In the early part of this year a large amount of .stores of all kinds were despatched to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, and to India, in view of a possible complication arising out of the war between Kussia and Turkey. The Arsenal worked full time and overtime for some months. It is busy now, but not more than it has been for many years. During the Crimean war 15,000 hands were employed here; eight thousand is now the number of the regular staff. The stock of new rifled cannon ready for immediate delivery, notwithstanding the drain which the last few years have made upon the warehouses and the yards, is 6000 rifled battery, ship and field guns, one hundred 35 and.33-ton' guns, and 40 and 80-ton guns. For these latter monsters a great ship has been built called the Inflexible. It is nearly ready to receive the latest products of the heart of destruction. The 35-ton and 38-ton guns, which a year or two ago were the, ••Woolwich infants" par excellence, are now pretty well distributed in British war-ships and on British batteries. Mr Eraser, the chief executive officer of the gun factories, is the inventor of the special mode of manufacturing the weapons, and one of their " recommendations is the fact that it is almost impossible to burst them. Ordinary and proper use will never injure them. From the biggest to the smallest they are; as good after 1000 rounds as they are after 100. The Fraser gun is declared by English experts to be the 1 best, safest, and cheapest gun manufactured. Even in the case of several of his guns, which had been "tested to destruction," it has been found next, to impossible to burst them. How important this is, may be illustrated by the fact that during the Franco-German war at least 100 cannon burst, killing as many gunners as would furnish artillerymen enough for a large army. ■, : The work of converting old cannon into new riffe guns has been going on for many years; so that in this respect Great Britain may be said to hare been actively preparing for war for the last ten years at least. The two" coili, which fit one within'the other, are placed end to end in a furnace, from the other ends project. When at the welding heat, they are squeezed together by means of a bolt passed through them, and screwed up with a nut. These- tubes, after being turned and bored clean, are inserted In the iron guns, which, as a rule, are then rifled as 64 pounders. Before insertion, the steel tubes are tempered by being placed upright in a furnace heated with wood, and when at a proper temperature plunged into a two thousand gallon bath of oil. As-we once more cross the outer roadway, we pass a magnificent group of boilers, 24 in number, for supplying steam to the great hammers an^ rolling mill. I have seen no sight like this in the world, two dozen boilers with their furnaces at' red heat their brass fittings aglow with a polish that gave them the appearance ot burnished gold. The guide conducts us to the westernmost of the corrugated iron buildings which form the rear range of the Royal Gun Factories. Here we make 'the acquaintance of the forty-ton steam hammer, the most powerful implement the world can show.

We then visited the laboratory workshop-, an enormous factory containing no less than 500 lathes, propelled by 4077 ft. of revolving shafts under the control of a pair of engines in the south-east and iouth-west corners of the buildings. "We can make three million cartridges a week," lays our guide. "How many bullets are you making per week now? " we ask our guide. " About one million," he says. "We are' not so busy now, because we have such enormous stores in Btock." Straugers - are not shown the department where the Whitehead torpado is made. The improvements introduced into this fearful engine of war at Woolwich are said to be of such a. character as to make it almost human in its intelligent working. If it goes astray it can be picked up easily by its owners, if an enemy attempts to touch'it, the thing s explodes as discreetly as if it knew friend from foe; if in its destructive course it encounters some wreckage or other obstacle, not the ship for which it isdestined, it turns aside and goes straighjt for its object; should it encounter a. net placed round the vessel, it dives down untler the . net, comes up .perpendicularly, and th*n goes on for the enemy's ship, as if it were a diver and a swimmer instinct with life. The range of buildings known as the Military Store or Central Department extends the whole length of the western wharf, and stretches some distance along, the east wharf also; there are branches at the dockyard beyond, connected by railway, while the miniature railway that threads the arsenal runs away into

_ llio marshes of Erith to the Government powder magazine. Its gauge is but 18 inches, enabling the engines and cars. to penetrate the remotest corners of the works, picking up or delivering stores at any point where its services can be required. As regards stores, equipment, guns, ships, ammunition, England has "never been in such a condition for warlike work as she is now. This I found to be the general opinion at Woolwich ; at Enfield, the small arms manufactory; at Shoeburyness, the trial _ ground of the big guns ; at Birmingham, where some large contracts have recently been completed ; at Sheffield, where they make the armour-, plates and the steel line of many of the WjOolwich guns, and in all the departments of the War Office.—Times correspendent. '