|
| THE KRUPP GUN EXHIBIT - The interior of Herr
Krupp's Building was a single chamber, and the visitor there obtained
a valuable and memorable lesson on the simplicity of really great
things. Here was truly a place where subjective or inner thought was
the measure of enjoyment. A child might enter here, and see little
to arouse its wonder. An engineer might linger all day, to find his
thoughts ever after returning to the prodigies that here surrounded
him. The engraving shows the gun eighty-seven feet long, that weighs
two hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds, or one hundred and
twenty-four tons; it is the longest and largest, yet not
overwhelmingly so. The labor of getting that cannon from Essen,
Germany, to Chicago was the marvel of modern transportation. At
Hamburg and at Baltimore great cranes were used, such as the one
which may be seen in this series of engravings lifting a sixty-five
ton locomotive. A special nest of flat-cars was built - that is, two
flat-cars were bridged together; another pair was bridged together;
then a longer span bridged the two pair together, and thereon the
cannon rested, having eight railroad trucks under it. This gun fires
a projectile that weighs a ton, and the missile goes sixteen miles.
A half-ton of powder is used, and the cost of the charge is $1,250.
Near by was a steel plate sixteen inches thick, through which a
twelve inch shot had been projected, cracking the plate and throwing
the upper corner half and inch awry. The steamship forgings were as
wonderful as the cannons. |
