"PATRIOT."-A TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF THE "CLAUGHTON" CLASS OF 6 FEET 6 INCH, SIX WHEELS COUPLED EXPRESS PASSENGER ENGINE WITH SUPERHEATED BOILER; FOUR H.P. CYLINDERS, 15 INCH BORE X 26 INCH STROKE ; BOILER PRESSURE, 175 LBS. PER SQ. INCH; MAXIMUM TRACTIVE FORCE, 24,130 LBS.; WEIGHT OF ENGINE AND TENDER IN WORKING ORDER, 117 TONS. [To face p. 99.

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as to popular imagination, than that embodied in the modern British locomotive. Who in the course of his travel experience has not happened at that "Mecca" of railway bustle and romance," Euston," the epic terminus of Britain's premier line, and focussing with his eye the hazy limit of a far-receding platform, has not traced the tapering profile of some distant-bound express, marvelling the while that, harnessed on ahead, should be pent up a force eager, impatient, yet withal so mighty that of a sudden, subservient to its call, this elongated span of motionless inertia laden with living freight should smoothly glide away, and gathering momentum on its path with ceaseless rhythm, ever along, along and along, sweep towards the far elusive line of the horizon? Yet this, in plain prosaic English, was the ennobling vista opened through peaceful years of patient toil and perseverance to the public ken, and dull must be the mind which contemplates unmoved that splendid emblem of the locomotive world, the awe-inspiring "Claughton" of that ilk, noble of mien and black of tint, with breast-plate red, toying with trains the equal of 400 tons and more, ticking aside the minutes and the miles alike.

Figuratively speaking, Crewe may perhaps be referred to as the "spill" on which the face of the London and North-Western compass pivots; the four points, north, south, east, and west, extending respectively to Carlisle, London, Leeds and Holyhead; but familiar as are the scenes of everyday activity throughout the

entire length and breadth of the Company's system, foggy, for the most part, are the notions as to the phenomenal whirl of industrial enterprise daily in progress within the precincts of Crewe Works.

Yet in these great engine Works (so menacing and unprecedented were the exigencies created by this voracious war), 'midst all the multifarious machinery and up-to-date appliances whereby is fashioned and evolved in all its amazing detail that complex'piece of mechanism, the very essence of railroad itinerancy, the modern locomotive, was improvised with a speed approximating that of the mushroom which springs up in the night, a model and comprehensive plant, correlative with the multiform processes involved in the manufacture of that swift harbinger of death, the high-explosive shell, and its complement of grim appurtenances. How paralysing was the lack of these shells may be gathered from the fact that'"in the month of May (1915), when the Germans were turning out 250,000 shells a day, most of them high-explosive, we were turning out 2500 a day in high explosive and 13,000 in shrapnel." This gentle reminder to a lethargic House did actually (so we are told) evoke cries of "Oh," which latent degree of enthusiasm cannot be considered exactly vulgar or ultra ebullient, when side by side with so depressing a situation at home we endeavour to grasp the staggering figures as set forth in the following French official statement:-" Our artillery to

Mr. Lloyd George, House of Commons, Dec. 15th, 1915.

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the north of Arras fired in twenty-four consecutive hours 300,000 shells, that is to say, very nearly as many shells as were fired by the entire French artillery in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The weight of these 300,000 shells can be put at 4,500,000 kilos; or nearly 4435 tons. In other words, more than 300 large trucks were required for carrying them by rail, or roughly half a dozen complete goods trains; by road this would have meant 4000 waggons, each with a team of six horses. The monetary value of these projectiles may be put at something like £374,800."

Prior to the summer of 1914, a shell, if not exactly an unknown quantity, was at any rate one of these obvious, even if somewhat curious things that might conceivably (in fact probably did) claim a certain amount of attention from that rather spoilt and very exclusive little clique, the professional army people. One read in the papers, too, from time to time, that the Navy (that immensely 'popular though slightly enigmatic asset of the Empire) was indulging in a little target practice somewhere out at sea; this would mean the firing of a few projectiles; but that was as it should be; we all liked the comfortable assurance that we could " "sleep quietly in our beds;" with an innate and justifiable sense of pride we liked, when occasion permitted, solemnly to stand up and join in the refrain" Britannia, rule the waves."

Latterly, however, the "shell" has acquired

1 The late Lord Fisher, Nov. 9, 1907.

so widespread a degree of prominence, proportionate to the toll of human life and of material damage that it has exacted, it has become in effect so commonplace an object, hackneyed as the very chimney-pots of a jerry-built row of houses, that a word of apology should perhaps be prefaced to any additional allusion to a subject already so often cited, which might otherwise and pardonably be regarded as superfluous.

Before diving, however, into any details as to the methods of manufacture, it may be interesting to pause for a few moments and to inquire into the nature of the mysterious movements of the shell when, deposited by the artilleryman with tender and loving care safely and securely within the breech of his gun, it flies away, the unerring intermediary between him and the hated foe of an argument deadly and convincing.

Our gunner experts (armchair no doubt as well as professional) will, of course, tell us that the flight of a shell is gyroscopic, this possibly in lucid contradistinction from that of the convexshaped boomerang, which, according to reliable information, is gifted with the graceful, albeit inconvenient, art of returning to its original point of departure. The shell, however, ere it quits the muzzle of the gun, thanks to what is known as the rifling or grooving of the bore of the gun, thanks, too, to the action of that indispensable little adjunct familiarly known as the copper band, is imparted with the vigorous twist, and