Word: arsenal
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Sitting where they could feel the influence of local disturbances and color, a Naval Committee last week went through the usual formality of investigating a disaster after it has happened. At Dover, N. J., where the Naval Arsenal suddenly exploded three weeks ago when struck by lightning (TIME, July 19), the committee last week decided that God's act was unavertable...
...that the expenditure and trouble had not warranted such extraordinary precautions. Other gentlemen of the Navy said that they thought the best lightning controls known at the time were being employed by the Government, and that they were completely surprised to think that lightning had struck the U. S. arsenal...
Some few added that the arsenal at Dover was overstocked by anywhere from 800% to 300%, that the roofs of the storage warehouses were wooden, that no sprinkler systems were used inside the buildings, that the high explosives had been jammed together in buildings much too close together. Nothing definite was said concerning the contention of Professor Michael Pupin of Columbia University, who stated that the lightning could have been held under control by the use of copper roofings connected by heavy copper strappings directly to the ground; or the belief of Inventor Hudson Maxim that subsurface magazines are essential...
...system of lightning rod protectors at Lake Denmark is obviously inefficient. The Government controls immense voltages of electricity at Niagara Falls; why have not engineers sought a method to control electrical attacks on the concentrated sudden death at Dover? Were the officials negligent in permitting habitation near the arsenal? Will new storage plants be situated at Dover? Will serious attempt be made to safeguard them against lightning? Will the 21 other arsenals along the U. S. seacoasts and borders be modernized...
...Government. Despite this, a message, signed by the Rotary Club, and approved by the Kiwanis Club, the American Legion, the Business Men's Association, and the Mayor's Committee of Dover protested indignantly when it was suggested that perhaps it would be better to remove the arsenal to some distant region, take away from the merchant's their bonanza of soldier trade...