Mariner's Museum in Virginia Boring the USS Monitor's Guns

From the February 26, 2020, Daily  Press (Va,)  "Mariner's Museum bores gun of USS Monitor, takes major step  toward displaying ironclad's weapons" by Josh Reyes.

Eric Farrell didn't mind the  black water pouring on him as he peered down the bore of an eight-ton Dahlgren cannon as he kept the drill steady that was eating into the cannon.

The gun had set in a chemical bath at the museum for several years and for 140 years before that, it sat on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.  And, before that, it was in the rotating turret of the USS Monitor in its epic fight with the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia.

Tuesday was the first time he and the others in his group were able to use that one-of--kind drill to clear out silt, coal and other debris that had accumulated over the years.  Next week they plan to start on the second cannon.

Once the two cannons are bored out scientists will see how much salt still remains in each barrel and then chemically extract it.

Boring into these mammoth guns is no easy job.  Each weighs nearly eight tons and are 11 feet long with an opening 11 inches across.

At one point in the boring, something hard was encountered and there was a momentary thought it might be the ship's cat which according to one story was placed in the gun as the ship sank.  It turned out to be apiece of a crab.

Oh, Well, No Cat But Crab.  --Old B-Runner