An absolutely new type of gun, the invention of an American citizen, and sponsored by Mrs. Kathryn M. Stanton, of Whitestone, Long Island, is soon to be tried out by the United States government at Fort Hancock. The new weapon is operated without powder, is noiseless as well as smokeless, and hurls missiles with deadly aim. The missiles may be anything from an egg to a lump of dynamite. There is no barrel, and the gun can be operated by an untrained man or woman. It is simple of construction, and all of its parts can be made at any machine shop, with a cost of less than one tenth the price of a weapon using explosives. Mrs. Stanton is an ardent preparedness advocate, and she soon became interested in the gun, after the workings had been explained to her. She financed the building of a model, and personally superintended the making of the gun. The weapon was tried out at Sandy Hook, and the officers who were present pronounced the gun the weapon of future warfare. It is a purely mechanical device, and can be operated by any sort of motor, including hand power. To put it more scientifically, the harnessing of centrifugal force is what does the work. Any kind of engine will run the machine—steam, gasoline, or electric.
The first crude working model could be packed in a dry goods box. It threw shots to a distance of a mile and a half, so accurately that fifty shots struck inside of a two-foot ring. The power?—An electric motor of only one half of a horse power. With more powerful motors, there seems to be hardly any limit to what the new "gun" can do. It can be regulated to fire one shot a second or one shot an hour, as desired. A large model will be ready for trial in a few weeks.
