which powder is also raised to the guns on electric elevators. The whole system is adjusted to a point where the men in the powder and shell rooms operate their small elevators so that, as soon as the shell is rammed into the breech of the gun by an electric ram, the powder elevator is rising with the powder. In case of serious accident, every man in the turret is willing to throw the proper valves which will isolate the turret, flood it and prevent fire spreading. The magazines, too, may be flooded, and the men in them are ever will ing to die themselves if it be necessary to save the ship. When the U.S.S. "Mississippi" suffered the loss of twenty-one men in her No. Three turret three years ago, the entire ship was saved from destruction by a magazine explosion only because one of the men flooded the magazines as he was dying. His hand was found firmly clenched to the valve handle. Such accidents are now believed impossible, the navy having developed a system of creating air pressure in the turrets, so that as soon as the gun breech is thrown open after firing one projectile, the air pressure from the inside is stronger than that from without, and the air rushes out through the gun's barrel carrying all unburnt powder and other hot debris from the gun out to the deck. Previously the air would rush into the magazine from the outside through the gun muzzle, carrying the hot powder particles into the space where there were hundreds of pounds of powder bags awaiting the next loading.
Six of the "California's" Great Rifles Undergoing Elevation Tests to Try Out the Mechanism before Putting to Sea for Target Practice after the Annual Overhauling
The big day arrives! The ship will shoot at noon! Up on the boat deck, where the anti-aircraft guns are mounted, the officers are making a final check of everything. The "director" crews are aloit, for now the United States navy uses the scientific "director fire" method which was first used by the German navy at the battle of Jutland. A gunner. standing ready, chalks a fanciful name on his great weapon, "Battling Betsy," for instance, and an old officer, standing by, brings his
