INTERESTING WAR NOTES

Lake County Press, Issue 2738, 13 June 1918, Page 7

INTERESTING WAR NOTES

THE FAMOUS I7in HOWITZEH 3 GUNS. ? In an Essen furnace the now famous I 17in howitzer was born, a cumbrous monster drawn by 40 horses, and with | pedrail wheels enabling it to travel over I the roughest ground. The heroic General Leman, of Liege, | says the gun threw a shell weighing ! one ton “with a violence of which words can convey no idea.” The dread projectiles burst with earthquake effect, and an explosive power hitherto utterly unknown. “We heard the roar in the air. It was like the howl of a raging tornado, and the end was a thunderclap with enormous dust-clouds over the shivering earth.” No gunner discharges this terrific weapon; it is set oil' by electric contact from a distance. At first our men called those guns “Berthas,” a strange reflection upon the cannon-queen, who reads with wonder of her namesakes, and how they shattered steel-clad fortresses long thought impregnable. When the shells missed fire they made a crater in the ground in which five horses could be buried. Each shot costs a thousand pounds, so infinite care is taken to ensure that it takes effect. , No phase of slaughter is neglected in tho Essen forge or factory, laboratory, or testing-ground, where demonstrations in the art of wholesale murder are given every day. In the whole empire only the Krupp staff is released from military service. Tho chemists are busy with “T.N.Y.,” the new Prussian explosive which has proved so deadly in aerial bombs in tho war heads of torpedoes which have such our ships. Other products of the Essen shops are the benzine tabloids for firing villages and towns, petrol sprayers for incendiary work on the large scale, and tho saw bayonet which rips and tears flesh and bone, and no other Power but Prussia seeks to do. It has nine inches of teeth, and makes a wound which rarely heals. It seems so strange to talk of these things, but then, what in our history ever confronted us with such a crisis as the one we are now facing? Essen’s reeking chimneys hide the clear skies of peace; the voice of good will can hardly teach us whilst “Fritz”— Krupp’s giant hammer—smashes down upon armour-plate. “Fritz” is but one of 160 steam-hammers, and cost Alfred Krupp £IOO,OOO. Not far from him is the 5000-ton hydraulic press, as well as shears that cut steel as though it were cheese. This is the place which has set the pace in armaments, both by sea and land. It is Krupp’s and all that Krupp’s stands for that has made national economy impossible. But now civilisation is warring with Krupp, and his Satan’s seat in the (lack country of the river Ruhr. Those vorks will one day be razed i" +l >c

CHAPEL IN THE TRENCHES. In one of the French trenches the men have constructed a small chapel under the earth. It is larr; enough to admit twenty men at a time. Every effort has been made by the clever workmen who have built it to make tlie underground chapel difficult of bombardment. The interior ornamentation has been carried to high perfection, for a parquet floor, carpets, candlesticks, and kneeling chairs saved from the ruined churches are to be found in it. A wooden communion table has been erected in the trench chapel, and a magnificent French flag, the gift of an officer, has been hung over ifc. earth.

PRIZE-BOUNTY AND PENSIONS. How Naval Men are Paid. j Definite rates for naval pensions and prize-bounty shares have now been fixed by the authorities in England. For total disablement, cadets, midshipmen, sub-lieutenants, and lieutenants will receive £l5O a year, which may be increased to £250 a year; lieutenant-com-manders a minimum of £2OO a year and an increase in the maximum retired pay of £SO a year, commanders' pensions j being qualified in accordance with the ! retired pay, with an addition of £SO a 1 year. I The rate of pensions is reckoned acj cording to the extent of the injuries re- ■ ceived. Naval cadets, midshipmen, and J sub-lieutenants, for instance, receive a ! pension of £IOO per annum if their ! earning capacity is seriously affected. ' It' impaired, a pension of £75 per • annum ; if slightly impaired, a gratuity of £SOO, the decision to rest with the Medical Director-General.

For Loss of an Eye. New pensions and allowances for the loss of an eye or a limb or injury equivalent to or nearly equivalent thereto have also been sanctioned. Any officer who loses the sight of both eyes, as the result of injuries received in action, is not to be awarded less than £3OO a year in all. If the injuries are received otherwise than in action a pension of £75 a year will bo granted from the date of the loss or injury. Very generous provision is made u>. officers’ widows and children. Apart from pensions, which range from £SO to £IOO a year in the case of widows of lieutenants and sub-lieutenants, it is announced that, in cases of pecuniary need, additional allowances of £35 n year for boys and £25 a year for girls will bo awarded at the discretion of the Admiralty to the children of commissioned officers who dio during the war or are disabled through war service. These allowances will be payable ordinarily between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, but may bo extended to the ago of twenty-one. “Bluoher” Prizes. With regard to prize-bounty, it is ■ laid down that officers and crews of any ship present at the taking or dei s+roying of the enemy’s naval ships jure entitled to have distributed among I them as prize-bounty a sum calculated i it the rate of £5 for each person on j board the enemy ship at the beginning ' >f the engagement. The “Ulucher” is ; said to have had on board 800 officers ’ and men, and in that case the correct 1 sum to bo distributed as prize-bounty 1 will amount to £4,440. The destruction of Admiral Von Spec’s squadron will 'carry a far larger sum, for the “Scharn- ■ horst” and the “Gneisenau” had crews i numbering over 1,500, and the smallei ■ ships over 300 each. The prizs money is divided on scales of shares so that

every raau and boy on board will participate in the bounty. These amounts, however, are nothing to what, in the "good old days," naval men received in the way of bouuty. When, in 17(52, two small English ships. "Active" and "Favourite," captured the Spanish "Hermione," they took from her treasure valued at half a million pounds. The captain of each ship received as prize-money over £60,000, the commissioned officers £13,000 each, warrant, officers £4,336 each, and the seamen £486 eaqh. Thirty-seven years later the frigate "Triton" defeated a Spanish frigate, "Santa Brigida," and took out of her £300.000. Of this the "Triton's" captain obtained nearly £41,000, and the men £lB2 each.

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA, f.nd the Irrigation System that Made It a Fertile Territory. Well-developed irrigation schemes enabled Mesopotamia, Armenia, and other provinces in the. near and middle East, formerly to become the seats of mighty empires that possessed areal trading centres. To-day, they have comparatively few cities of any importance, and their commerce is carried on by caravans. The largest city in Mesopotamia, and the most celebrated, is Bagdad. Its present population is about 150,000. as compared with about 4,000,000 nine centuries ago. The differences between Mesopotomia in the ninth and tenth centuries and to-day were caused by the destruction of the early irrigation works of the Abbasid Caliphs in .the fifteenth century. Bagdad (says Dr. Arthur SelwynBrown in the “Scientific American ) has been the site of important cities from the remotest historical times. But the present city was founded by the Caliph Mansur in A.D. 702. The site was chosen on account of the rich alluvial plains in the ' vicinity, - and., the ample water resources of the' Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The previous cities of Bagdad were settled by Persians who carried out irrigation works, on a small scale in the plains a little to the south. These works showed that great wealth :ould be won from the land by means )f irrigation, and the Caliphs, who in heir travels with their armies,in Persia md Arabia learned the value of the accumulation of wealth in times ol pe°ee, gave as much attention to the development of irrigation works around Bagdad as they did to the city itself. In the height of prosperity Bagdad possessed the greatest system of litigation canals that has ever boeii constructed. In A.D. 1000 the canals m the vicinity of the city measured over 3,000 miles in length. These canals were well built, supplied with storage basins, locks and weirs, bridges, and loading docks for barges, and were kept in good order. In adition to the canals around Bagdad there were a large number, both north and south of the city, which joined the Euphrates with the i igrjs. and there were several running parallel with the rivers. 'The largest of the outside canals was known as" the Chosroos Canal.. It was built in the early historical Pines to connect Bagdad with the.city of Duj , about 100 miles to the north. Jins great canal was extended jpy the Caliph Mansur to the city of Madharaya, the modern Kut-el Amara. This gave the canal a length of 200 miles. Later Caliphs carried it 150 miles bejoml Dur. Whenever this canal passed through loose soil it was over 20:; feet in width and 6 feet deep. U here the around became rocky it v. as reduced to a width of 40 or 50 feet. This trunk canal carried a large boat traffic and supplied water to hundreds of miles of lateral canals and irrigation ditches, it enabled close settlement to be made over many thousands of miles of most splendid farming country South of the ancient city of Kehii. ,the Euphrates, now called Kcrbcla, there were great irrigation.developments on what was proved to be the richest agricultural land in Asia. |he Euphrates has since shifted Us bed about 30 miles eastward of its olu . arse, and the rich canal lands are now nothing but unhealthy, reedy swamps, the haunts of large herds of water *.m If aloes, cranes, and other animal < and birds. Between Dur and Basorah there wore over fifty trunk canals joining the Tigris and - Euphrates. Ijicse canals irrigated an area of about 3i,OUU square miles of rich farming lands. These lands, called the “Meadows of Gold,” were worked to the fullest extent under ail the Abbasid Caliphs between the years A.D. /5Q and 1208, when Bagdad was sacked by the Mongols and the rule of the Caliphs ended. After the Mongolian invasion Bagdad was no longer the capital of the Mohammedans, and the Holy City of Islam. It reverted to Persia, and became the capital of the Province of Irak. It was occupied by the Mongols • until. A.D. 1411, when it fell into the possession of tlio Black Turkomans, who m turn, in 1469, were dispossessed by the white Turkomans. The Persians retook. Mesopotamia from the White Turkomans in 1508, and in 1534, they gave way to the Ottoman Turks, who have - since retained possession. NEW INDUSTRY. Talc or soapstone is now being shipped regularly to Great Britain from South Africa a development in the industry which has taken place since the beginning of the European war The South African tale is being supplied from the Barberton district, but it is also found in Rhodesia. The British and South African Export Gazette states that its discovery is almost a romance, and pi ys a tribute to the patience and' perseverance of the man who was solely responsible for it. For over six yeai;s, states the journal previously men tioned the man continued his prospectin" work, often in the face of ridicule, and more frequently of calumny. Thus the early history of the Rand repeats itself. To-day the man who has developed this industry bids fair rapmly to become a millionaire, for French chalk is a commodity that is used in enormous quantities in a multitude of diverse industries, and the only limitation to the demand for the South African product will he the difficulty of securing the tonnage. South Africa and the Motherland will he the richer for what, but for the times, would rightly be.regarded as a sensational discovery of unusual magnitude. “Oh. Auntie,” cried little Amy in the nursery, “make Freddy, behave himself. Every time I hit- him on the head with the malic* ho bursts out crying.” "