State

Whale’s Head Light - tiff ii. E. DEAN ON the bench north of the vil¬ lage of Duck, N. C.. at rang north winds pile up the Mind into great barchanes or nicdanos. Thev crescent ric sand dunes are known Inrallv as "Whale's Heads." hence the name for Currituck Beach Light house. "Whale's Head Light" stands 163 feet high on the beach at Corolla, a const village of perhaps 100 souls. Its rough, unpainted brick are in sharp contrast to the black ami white horirontal bands that distinguish Bod it* Island light, further down the coast, or the octagonal black and white squares that characterize the lighthouse at Cape Henry, Va.. up the beach to the north. Built in 1875 it fills a dangerous gap in the coast between Cape Henry and Bodie £ Island where southbound vessels keep well inshore to avoid the north¬ ward flow of the flulf Stream. Near here the steamer Metropolis was wrecked in January, 187i), with a loss of more than НИ) lives. Gatling’s Gun АЛ'НОГНН he invented one of the most deadly, death dealing weapons of warfare in history, Richard Jordan Gatling, a North Carolinian bom on a farm up in Hertford County on September 12. 1818, is said to have been one of the kindest and gentlest of men. He in¬ vented the machine gun. As a boy on his father's farm near Winton young Dick Gatling early displayed his inventive genius. Work¬ ing with his father he helped con¬ st met и machine that would sow cotton seeds and they soon followed it up with another invention that would thin out young cotton plants. He went away to school to study to become a doctor but although he was graduated from a medical college in Ohio he was destined never to prac¬ tice medicine. The urge to invent was too strong in him. It was in 1861 that he hit upon the intricate mechanism that was the fore-runner of all the machine guns used today. It consisted of ten gun barrels fastened in a parallel posi¬ tion to a central shaft turned by a crank. Cartridges were set into the breach through an electrical arrange¬ ment known as a hopper and as many as 1,200 bullets could be fired per minute. The sight of some of the first soldiers wounded in the War Between the States so sickened Richard Gat¬ ling with the methods of warfare then employed that he was de¬ termined to invent something that would alleviate wars horrors. By mak¬ ing war more terrible, he reasoned i s > _ Щ Ml ■ the nations of the world might he less willing to resort to arms to settle their disputes. But like the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. 42 years later, little did he realize that his invention was to spread wholesale death and destruction throughout the world- Gatling opened a laboratory in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he con¬ structed six more of his guns, then still pretty much in the experimental stage. But fire destroyed the build¬ ing where ho was working and the new inventions were a total loss. However he soon made a dozen more machine guns and one of these was used successfully for the first time by General Butler 'a troops in mow¬ ing down infantry in an engage¬ ment on the hanks of the James River, in Virginia, during the closing years of the War Between the States. In 1865 Gatling improved his in¬ vention further and found himself famous as the inventor of "Gatling’s Gun,” a fact that is said to have irritated him. A year later, after satisfactory trials, his machine gun was adopt ed for use by the Army of the United State*. Several foreign governments also bought the rights to manufacture machine guns based on his invention. Gatling continued to work on in¬ ventions designed to lighten the farmer's burden and turned out a machine gun for lowing rice and a double-acting hemp rake. He also in¬ vented a steam plow but it was never put to any practical use. He died on February 27, 1903. just two months after the Wright brothers had made their first successful air¬ plane flights at Kitty Hawk little dreaming that u combination of the two inventions would revolutionize warfare. MORKHEAD CITY was el . red by the news Saturday that it would be made a |»ort of entry for naval vr— el*, including large warchip*. plying along the Atlantic seaboard. Rep. Graham A. Harden «л* noti¬ fied by Admiral Stark, chief of naval operation*, that all naval vessels would be routed through More- head City port terminal whenever po&sibic. He informed the congress¬ man that oflicers of other Navy ships visiting this |*ort were greatly pleased with the harbor and its natural facilities. Barden some time ago conferred with Admiral Brainward regarding making Morrhcad City a port of call and wn« told everything would lie done to make this possible. Kdonton, Now Born, Bath, Wil¬ mington, Hillsboro. Halifax, Smith- field, Fayetteville. Tarboro, were the town* in North Carolina that served a* the eolonial or state capital before the state government was established a. Raleigh. S