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It would be foreign to the purpose of this report to dwell on the many objects of commerce which are supplied from these works, but it is safe to say that no proposed work can be of such magnitude as to exceed the resources of the establishment. For the preparation of metal for cannon and armor-plates Le Creusot is thoroughly equipped.
By the end of the first week of November the Boers had established their circle of fire. On the east of the town, broken by the loops of the Klip River, is a broad green plain, some miles in extent, which furnished grazing ground for the horses and cattle of the besieged. Beyond it rises into a long flat-topped hill the famous Bulwana, upon which lay one great Creusot and several smaller guns.
The night has been passed in preparing a surprise for the big Creusot gun on Middle Hill, which, because of his propensity for throwing shells into everybody's mess, has come to be known as the "Meddler." Deep gun-pits are dug on the northern slope of Waggon Hill, where on a nek they are screened by the higher spur from view of Middle Hill.
The gun is the same kind as "Long Tom" and "Puffing Billy" a 6 in. Creusot, throwing a shell of about 96lbs. The Boers have sixteen of them; some say twenty-three. The name is "Gentleman Joe." He did about £5 damage at the cost of £200. From about 8 to 9 a.m. the general bombardment was rather severe.
To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was another Creusot, and between the two were the Boer batteries upon Lombard's Kop. The British naval guns were placed upon this side, for, as the open loop formed by the river lies at this end, it is the part of the defences which is most liable to assault.
Sir John French commanded nearly a million men and General Joffre more than double that number, while our advantage in guns and munitions was not less marked; an almost unlimited supply of shells had been accumulated during the summer, and the new Creusot howitzers outdid the monsters from Essen and Skoda.
"Long Tom" had come. "Long Tom," the hero of Dundee, able to hurl his vast iron cylinder a clean six miles as often as you will. I saw him and his brother gun on trucks at Sand River Camp on the Transvaal border just before the war began. They say he is French a Creusot gun throwing, some say 40lbs., some 95lbs., each shot.
Two of them craned their long inquisitive necks up and exchanged repartees with the big Creusot. And so it was that the weary and dispirited British troops heard a crash which was louder and sharper than that of their field guns, and saw far away upon the distant hill a great spurt of smoke and flame to show where the shell had struck.
Chagot, who became purchasers in the sum of $180,000, were in turn obliged to sell out in 1826. Creusot was then ceded to Messrs. Manby & Wilson, who already had works at Charenton. At the end of seven years of efforts this firm made a failure, and, finally, in 1836, after six million dollars had been swallowed up, Creusot was bought for $536,000, by Messrs. Adolphe & Eugene Schneider & Co.
But, on the whole, these two apparatus are only fifty ton ones, and have a fall of but ten feet. Now, Creusot and St. Chamond each has a hundred ton steam hammer with a fall of 16 feet, accompanied with four furnaces and four cranes. But why proceed to the manufacture of monstrous guns, like those that Mr.
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