al specimen. Across the top it was between fifty and
sixty feet in diameter, and it sloped down evenly for a depth of
eighteen feet in the chalky soil to a pointed bottom, where two men
would have difficulty standing together without treading upon each
other's toes. Its sides were lined with loose pellets of earth of the
average size of a tennis ball, and when we slid down into the hole these
rounded clods accompanied us in small avalanches.

We were filled with astonishment, first, that an explosive grenade,
weighing upward of a ton, could be so constructed that it would
penetrate thus far into firm and solid earth before it exploded; and,
second, that it could make such a neat saucer of a hole when it did
explode. But there was a still more amazing thing to be pondered. Of
the earth which had been dispossessed from the crevasse, amounting to a
great many wagonloads, no sign remained. It was not heaped up about the
lips of the funnel; it was not visibly scattered over the nearermost
furrows of that truck field. So far as we might tell it was utterly
gone; and from that we deduced that the force of the explosion had been
sufficient to pulverize the clay so finely and cast it so far and so
wide that it fell upon the surface in a fine shower, leaving no traces
unless one made a minute search for it. Noting the wonder upon our
faces, the officer was moved to speak further in a tone of sincere
admiration, touching on the capabilities of the crowning achievement of
the Krupp works:

"Pretty strong medicine, eh? Well, wait until I have shown you American
gentlemen what remains of the fort; then you will better understand.
Even here, out in the open, for a radius of a hundred and fifty meters,
any man, conceding he wasn't killed outright, would be knocked senseless
and after that for hours, even for days, perhaps, he would be entirely
unnerved. The force of the concussion appears to have that effect upon
persons who are at a considerable distance--it rips their nerves to
tatters. Some seem numbed and dazed; others develop an acute
hysteria.

"Highly interesting, is it not? Listen then; here is something even more
interesting: Within an inclosed space, where there is a roof to hold in
the gas generated by the explosion or where there are reasonably high
walls, the man who escapes being torn apart in the instant of impact, or
who escapes being crushed to death by collapsing masonry, or killed by
flying fragments, is e