SAFEST SHELLS OF ALL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXIV, Issue 17654, 2 September 1919, Page 5

SAFEST SHELLS OF ALL.

THEY'LL GO SO HIGH THEY'LL

NEVER FALL

The huge-gun—"Big Bertha"—with which the Germans bombarded Pftris, ftred from a distance of between seventy and eighty miles. This, long range was pai'tJy due to the shape of the shell, but mostly to the fact that a great part of its flight was many miles from the ground, where the'air is so exceedingly thin that it cannot .effectively stop a moving body by "putting on the brake." * , Big Bertha's shells left her barrel going :it the terrific rate of one mile in a second. If we could make a similar g-nn from which it shell started at the rate of five miles per second —and this may be possible some day—that shell would notcome down again, but would keep moving round and round the earth like a microscopic moon, rising and setting a good many times in twenty-fou,r hours. And could vre increase the starting pace to seven-miles per second, the shell would disappear in space and never be seen again. _____