"The Age of The Machine"

The age in which we live has been called the "Age of the Machine," users of the phrase pointing to the thousands of mechanical devices subject to the will of Man, both in peace and in war. A very interesting and instructive comparison has been made between the huge cemeqt kiln of the Monolith Portland Midwest Company at Laramie, Wyoming, and one of Uncle Sam's powerful 10 inch Pacific Defense guns, which follows.

"The massive rotary kiln is 341 feet long, from l0 to 11 feet in diameter, weighs nearly 1000 tons, and accepts a load of 300,000 pounds. The gun is much smaller in every way, in length, in diameter, in weight and in load,-yet should man, the master, direct the weapon at the kiln, the smaller machine would blow the larger one in all directions so far that many parts of it could never be found.

"On the other hand, were the gun to be placed inside the maw of the monster kiln, in a few minutes what was a terrible engine of power would be reduced to a mass of liquid perhaps not even metal. For this peace-time machine, under its extremes of 300 degrees fahrenheit temperature, changes the very elements themselves.

"A blast from either one is hot enough, the difference being that the heat of th-e one stays within and that of the other is used to propel projectiles several miles away, there to destroy whatever it may strike. Both machines are perfectly harmless, and perfectly useless also, except as.man directs. But when he gives the word, the gun rocks the earth itself, and the giant kiln turns out material to build houses, roads, bridges and many other things.

"So it would appear that man, for peace and for war, has produced two great machines, similar in many ways, yet different in nature, that under certain given circumstances, could each destroy the other. And the greatest point of similarity is that big guns of the United States have never yet been put to use but in defense of hrtmanlty, and never will, just as the kiln is only used to make a product to make man happier."