MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 65 



mouth of the barrel, and by a turn of the thumb and finger, holding 

 the cartridge, reverse the ball that the conical point may be upwards. 

 The ramrod is then drawn and reversed, and the head being concave, 

 or cup form, it has a good purchase over the ball, which is easily 

 rammed home, and does not require a second, or subsequent ram- 

 mings. The piece is then fired with great ease, and is said to be 

 capable of carrying the ball 1,200 yards, and with correct aim up to 

 900 yards, the aim for all distances from 300 to 900 yards being taken 

 correctly by a parallel groove marked with the respective distances 

 it is wished the ball should be carried when directed at an object, a 

 slide in the groove being raised or lowered to take the ' sight." 



Mr. Fairbairn, at the meeting of the British Association, observed 

 that, until of late years, all the gun barrels for the army, and other 

 descriptions, had to be welded upon mandrils, some of them formed 

 by a bar of iron rolled upon the mandril, in a spiral direction, and 

 then welded, by repeated beatings from the muzzle to the breech. 

 Others were differently constructed, by welding the bars longitudi- 

 nally, in the line of the barrel, and not in the spiral direction adopted 

 in the former process. Now the whole is welded at one heat, and 

 that through a series of grooves in the iron rollers, specially adapted 

 for the purpose. This, with other improvements, has rendered the 

 manufacture of rifles and other arms a matter of much greater cer- 

 tainty and security than at any former period. Admitting the advan- 

 tages peculiar to this manufacture, it does not, however, affect the 

 principle of the rifle itself, in which there is no alteration, but in every 

 respect similar, even to the spiral grooves, which, I believe, are not 

 altered, but are the same as in the old rifle. This being the case, it 

 has been a question of much interest to know wherein consists the 

 great difference in the practice with the new rifle, as compared with 

 that of the old one. It is not in the gun, and must, therefore, be in 

 the ball, or that part of the charge which generates the projectile 

 force. But, in fact, the improvement consists entirely in the form of 

 the ball, which is made conical, with a hollow recess at the base, into 

 which a metallic plug is thrust by the discharge. The plug is so con- 

 structed as that when driven into the ball, it compresses the outer 

 edges against the sides of the barrel, and, at the same time, forces a 

 portion of the lead, from its ductility, to enter the groove, and to give 

 the ball, when discharged, that revolving motion which carries with 

 such unerring certainty to the mark. In the practice which I wit- 

 nessed, with one of those rifles, on the marshes at Woolwich, the 

 following results were obtained. Out of twelve rounds, at a distance 

 of 700 yards, as near as I can remember, only one bullet missed the 

 target, and the remaining eleven rounds were scattered within dis- 

 tances of about six inches to four feet from the bull's eye. At 800 

 yards three shots missed the target, and the remaining nine went 

 through the boards, two inches thick, and lodged themselves in the 

 mounds behind, at a distance of about twenty yards. The same re- 

 sults were obtained from a distance of 900 yards, and at 1,000 yards 

 there were very few pf the bullets but what entered the target. In. 



