AMARELLI'S DYNAMITE SHELL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12089, 18 August 1917, Page 2

AMARELLI'S DYNAMITE SHELL.

To support so musical a nam." 1 yoUng Mr Anmvolli, the pride and wonder of ~H little South Auckland township, should rightly have cultivntf<l long hair and a violin, or at least an operatic voice. His native stenius ran otherwise His father had fought in (laribaldi's red-shirt .army in the* War of Liberation, and the family owned a long record of soldierly service in Italy and Sicily. As ho followed the plough or leg-roped his cows his thoughts followed very different trails. His tastes and gifts lay in mechanical invention, and preferjihly h\ tho specialised direction of munitions of war. .Many n.iimo ho had narrowly escaped blowing up himEelf riul his little slab lean-io of a workshop at the back of the. stable, and the famiiy lived in intermitt"ut spasms of fear, fuily expecting to see him suddenly sailint: skyward in a cloud of .smoke in company with tinroof. Once he contrived a flying nwohiino, on the ynodel of the craft that in later years came to he known as an aeroplane, and 1 have no doubt, thiit had lie lived in Aiuori<-n. where inventive talent 'usually receives a fair deal. he would hare become i'ainous. unless ho chanced to explode himself or break his neck in the. process. !t happened fortuitously that tho flying machine just came short, of flying, otherwise Amarelli -would scarcely have .survived to develop the great experiment of his life, a device in which his sanguine vision behold such man-killing and fortrazing possibilities that he left fields nnploughed and cows half-milked in his fagernnss to perfect an invention that promised to revolutionise war .is it was in that first year of the Boer campaign. ' This remarkable discovery of Auiarelli's was a .'-hell containing a dynamite charge, designed to bo ilred from I gun in the ordinary way and to hurst an impact. The obvious problem was to prevent the shell l/.ir.-ting in tin- gun at tho moment of iiring or before it> had reached its objective. This was the difficulty which had '".-t Amnreili many sleepless nights and manv risky days of high-explosive experiment. Now ho believed he had conquered it; he succeeded in tiring light charges of dynamite enclosed in his set ret brand of shell from a rifle, without either blowing out the breechblock or bursting the barrel. Hut it was to heavy artillery thai he wished to e.pulv his. discovery, and when he had taken out his patent and made the fruits of his long workshop travail secure, lie came to town in search oi a gun and of expert witnesses who could certily to the practical usefulness of the invention.. , Amarelli was a, cheerful soul, whom j one coMId not help admiring for his buoyant hopefulness and the por.sovcraiice with which lie battled on in the teeth of repeated discouragements. Jle had the heart of the inventor, and a temperament which bore him up t»> fresh efForts after every failure. He carried his invention to the naval and military authorities. His enthusiasm carried him well over the first hurdle tpf official suspicion and the constitutional aversion of the military mind to amateur meddling in t"ehnical matters. . The captain of H.M.&. Tatiranga and this gunn-?i-v lieutenant so far unloosed Kieir professional heart-strings as to heRome quite interested in Amarelli s 'dynamite shell, and to promise him assistance in his research work. but with verv proper caution and a due regard for*tho Regulations they drew the fine at experimenting with the ships yuns. Amarelli undertook to iind a , suitable piece of artillery on shore, and I tho commander promised that the gunnery officer should attend and report upon the practical test of the dynamite shell. . It was not easy to discover that needed "tin, for cannon were not to be had for"the asking in Auckland city. Amarelli enviouslv eyed the battery oi Did Russian and French guns at the flagstaff-foot in Albert Park; he tmaginpdlie could turn that artillery museum to useful ends if the city heads had a spark of intelligent interest in scion- ( tific orogress. In the end it was an ancient nine-pounder, a muzzle-loaduig ;arionade, cast well-nigh fifty years before, that the inventor secured for his purposes. It had been salved from the wreck of a ship on the West Coast, near Manukau Heads, and for thirty years it had stood on a wooden carriage in the middle of a green garden lawn fronting Khybcr Pass Road. Tt was honeycombed with rust; by no means the most suitable piece for high-explo-sive experiments, but Amarelli thought himself lucky when he was given permission to cart if- away on condition that he returned it after the test. The scene of the great gunnery experiment was a scoria t|uarry in tho side of one of the volcanic hills that rise in green bos.ses from ihe fair plains of the Auckland isthmus. It was a huge, ragged raw wound in the mountain; ono could have imagined it a threat crater newly blown out by the powers that built the cone of lava

THE STORY OF AN INVESTOR. By JAMES CWAN.) (Written foi the '-'Star.")

rock X»ar the outer end of ihe quarry Amarelli had mounted his borrowed pie-e oi ni-tillerv on :> pile or broken scoria, its breech almost touching a low stone wall that fenced in the quarry, its muzzle pointing: to the great blacji rubhlv wall of the crater. The gunnerv officer from the. lauranga was there--it was Lieutenant Aiie'd Hope Freeman, a splendid big, lieartv fellow, an officer beloved by his shipmates of all ratings: only two or three -months later he fell in an inglorious little skirmish in the Samoa hush, decapitated by n Mataafa warrior. There was another expert, too. ah officer of the Permanent Artillery, and there wore three or tour other*; of us, volunteers interested in gunnery business. All hands gathered round the old muzzle-loader to watch Amurelli's loading. The mysterious dynamite shell was shoved in on top of the powder (■barge, and the inventor s'-t a frictiontube in the vent, and saw all clear for firing by means of a lanyard. .Mr Freeman's eyebrow:-) went up Vihcn he saw the ancient contraption of a gun. discoloured with age and uneven with the scalings of rust. •' I would suggest, gentlemen." he tsaid, with a suspicion oi a smile, "' thai!' we take cover behind those rocks there and that .Mr Amarelli make hiir.sol/ as >:,iall ;>s possible behind that wall before lie piili.s ins lanyard. The recoil may send the stones flying." Rut it, wasn't. preciVily ihe recoil or the danger oi" flying stones that. Mr Freeman had -mi liis mind. Rig lump-, of lava rock, their interstices grown with flax and fern, stood a. few y?iV(h in rear of the scoria wall. I'.'ach man looked out a likely funk-holo for tumeric, and we stood on the top of the rocks lo watch Amarelli's final preparations. "Now stand from under, boy.." said the cheerful naval man as the inventor, kneeling behind tho fence, jerked his firing lanyard. No report followed. We ?aw Amarelli '•rane his neck over the wall, wondering why fhe piece had missed fire, and g.ive another quick tug at the lanyard. The next moment the deliberate old carronade responded. There wa.s a thunderous crash, and the quarry mouth was whrouded in gunpowder smoke. Wo heard uiisoi-n projectiles smashing <h:wn on the rocks about us and thudding on the grass and tern. '• By dove, the obi gun's showering the r-Jcks about us." said one gunnery man. ••.Must bar:- been a devil of a recoil. '■ Rocks be damned!" said tho Navy man. " It's rusty old iron, me son." Wlicin the breeze- swept, ihe smoke away, we saw Amarelli standing there at- tho thro-.-'-foot wall, the lanyard-end still in his hand, gazing in a dazed way at the tumbled heap of scoria in front •of him. The gun had disappeared ! All that wms left of it was a lump of the breech about six inches long, blown into the thick wail. The rest had vanished, blown into tho air and rained, around our devoted heads. Tho powder charge that Amarelli rammed* into the old e.-.irronad.' had be:m too much for the ancient weapon ; bit, one of our gunners afterwards declared his private bolivf-not in Amarelli's hearing, for fear of further lacerating the grieving inventor's feeling.s that, the dynamite cartridge had also burst in tho barrel, and that it was a. double-blanked marvel that, wo hadn't all had our blanked heads blown off. As for Amarelii himself, it is a perpetual wonder to mo that we found hi:!j alive and whole. The pioco had exploded just a ■ he leaned over the fence to discover why it hadn't gon-_ evf. The carronade had been violently distributed over an acre or two of ground. We picked up still smoking fragments of iron, ugly jagged projectiles, and the Permanent Artillery gunner suggested the presentation of the biggest piece to the owner of the cannon as a souvenir of an interesting experiment, but delisted at the sight of poor Amarelli's downcast visage. " Hard, luck, old man/' said the Tiiuranga's lieutenant. " Rut you couldn't expect anything else from a lump of rotten old iron." The dynamite-shell man soon bucked up; hope springs eternal in the inventor's breast. He declined to believe that the dynamite had exploded in the t in. and when we left tho place he was s.utiiiiig the quarry sides for proof of his faith in his pet shell, and his confidence that it had carried out the .specifications and burst only on impact. When last T 'heard of Amarelli be had given the War Office up. for a time at any rate, and was busy on an improved milking machine. Rut I cannot believe that such bucolic interests would bold him for long, and that his olden taste for experiments in gunnery and projectiles has deserted him; and it- may be that the name of Amarelli•--or something like it —will yet figure among those of gifted inventors whoso I'eniu • and perse/oranee have Indued in the winning of Rritain's greatest Mar.