Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1898 — FACES STAMPED BY SHELLS. [ARTICLE]

FACES STAMPED BY SHELLS.

Freaks Shown in Photographs of Battered Armor Shells. In the office of Mr. A. S. McSwigan, Carnegie building, Pittsburgh, can be seen photographs of one of the most curious freaks in cold metal. The photographs were taken immediately after the test of a section of hardened n : ckel steel armor plate against which had been fired two shells in the testing process. Nothing unusual was noticed about the armor plate at the time the photographs were taken, and when the negatives were developed there appeared unmistakably on the plate two faces where the shells had broken their way in.

The faces' were human and plainly outlined in the hardened steel, eyes, nose and mouth in their right places. Without doubt it was the strangest art work ever accomplished, the human face drawn on steel armor by the impact of a modern shell. So strange a freak of chance was it that when the photographs were completed and exhibited in the window, numbers came to see them, and wondered at the queernees of the thing. Sincethen a close examination of some of the other photographs taken of armor plate at which shells have been fired show that the holes form outlines of various shapes recognized in accurate life. In one there can be seen a face having all the appearance of a tiger snarling, open-mouthed, afid with distended eyes. In another there there can be traced the form of a dog curled up fast asleep. Turn the pictures which way you will, there is seen the resemblance to some form of life. Of course, there are many who say that the likenesses exist only in the imagination of the observer, but the strange similarity is so apparent that they have not the slightest doubt that a new phenomenon has been discovered in the faces on the steel. — Washington Post.