88 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



tation of those missiles in such a condition is alleged to have cost con- 

 siderable loss of life to the English army in the late Chinese war. 



The London Engineer also uses the following language : 



We shall have greatly mistaken if we are not now near deliverance 

 from the five-years' delusion of the so-called " Armstrong gun." In 

 actual range it has been exceeded by Mr. Lynal Thomas's rifled gim ; 

 in penetrative power, at short range, it is notoriously inferior to the 

 ordinary cast-iron service guns, throwing a projectile of even less 

 weight ; in cost it is very far more expensive than any other gun, 

 even when made of bronze or of steel, and in the essential qualities 

 of reliability in action it would appear, from all the experiments that 

 have been made, that it is inferior to any and every gun yet pro- 

 duced. As for great range, say beyond three miles, there is no ad- 

 vantage that any one can assign. But even if ten-mile ranges were 

 desirable, it would require only that the gun employed should be able 

 to withstand proportionate charges of powder, exploded behind long 

 projectiles of comparatively small diameter. Given an unburstable 

 gun, and almost any range under twenty or thirty miles would be prac- 

 ticable. Long range, with a given form and weight of projectile, is 

 solely, however, a question of so many pounds of powder and of the 

 strength of the gun. Powder is so cheap that, so far as its cost is 

 alone concerned, it is almost immaterial what quantity be used, and as 

 for the other and far more important condition, strength of gun, 

 it is sufficiently known that the Armstrong gun in no way approaches 

 to the greatest practicable strength. Captain Halsted, in a letter to 

 the Times, states that the Stork gunboat has had no less than four 

 100-pound Armstrong guns in succession, the first, second, and third 

 having failed, one after the other. 



New Spanish Rifled Cannon. From a recent report published 

 by the Spanish government, it appears that their Ordnance Board, 

 after trying various kinds of breech-loading guns, with lead-covered 

 shot like those now in use in England (the Armstrong system), have 

 decided on using muzzle-loading rifled cannon, made with a core of 

 cast iron, hooped with wrought iron ; a plan known as that of Capt. 

 Blakey. These guns are advertised in the English papers, with either 

 steel or iron cores, at very low rates : 12-pounders for $150, and 200- 

 pounders for $2,000. The shell used in these guns is entirely of cast- 

 iron, except six buttons of zinc, which enter the grooves of the gun, 

 and give rotation to the shell. As may be supposed, the exact angle 

 for the grooves, the exact length of the shot, and position of the but- 

 tons best adapted for service, were not ascertained without many 

 trials. At last, however, great certainty of aim seems to have been 

 attained, to judge by the published tables of firing. 



On the danger of rifling the present stock of cast-iron cannon, the 

 Spanish board say : 



" Cast-iron by itself, as is clearly proved to us by the bursting of 

 the guns we have tried, is not strong enough to resolve the question 

 of rifled cannon of large calibre, unless the charge of gunpowder be 

 much reduced, and even then the gunners would not feel confidence 

 in their guns." 



Wrought-iron guns, forged in one mass, the board also condemn. 

 Their final decision, which has been acted on by the government, to 



