92 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



the attention of several legislative bodies, and the States of Tennessee, 

 Louisiana, and Florida, have adopted it for their State militia. 



New Primer. A. N. Newton, of Richmond, Ind., has invented an 

 improved self-acting primer for fire-arms. The intention consists in 

 a light lever furnished with suitable fingers to hold a percussion cap, 

 and connected by suitable mechanism with the cock of the gun, the 

 movement of which will cause the fingers to take a cap from one of a 

 series of studs on a revolving cylinder or its equivalent which is fitted 

 to the side of the gun-lock for this purpose. To this lever a fork is 

 so attached that when the fingers before mentioned seize a cap, the 

 said crook or fork will partly encircle the nipple, and the movement 

 of the lever will cause it to withdraw the exploded cap from the 

 nipple. Scientific American. 



A correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune furnishes the following in- 

 formation relative to the improvements in fire-arms recently effected 

 in Europe, especially in France. He says : 



Since the completion of the models at the great Exhibition of Lon- 

 don, and the opening of the New York Exhibition, a great deal of 

 attention has been directed to the subject of small arms, in both the 

 United States and Europe. Our people have gained a certain 

 amount of notoriety in the manufacture of revolvers ; and for sharp- 

 shooting, they are very apt to believe there is no arm to be compared 

 to the American rifle, and no marksman equal to the rifleman of the 

 backwoods. In a certain sense this is perhaps true. But the Ameri- 

 cans are not the only people at this moment engaged in the study of 

 the perfection of small arms ; and it would be well to look at what 

 others are doing, in order to ascertain the position in which we stand. 

 If a man were to present himself before a Western log-cabin with 

 one of the " balle-a-tif/e " guns now in use by the Chasseurs de Vin- 

 cennes of the French army, and were to propose to shoot for a wager 

 at a distance of from 1,000 or 1,200 or even 1,400 yards, he would 

 be, perhaps, only laughed at for his proposition. And yet with the 

 gun now in the hands of over 15,000 men in the French army, and as 

 soon as possible to be in the hands of all, it is perfectly practicable for 

 an ordinary shot to be sure of hitting within the square exhibited by 

 the front of six to eight men at the distance of 1,200 and 1,300 yards, 

 while a little practice will enable him easily to hit a single man at the 

 same distance. The ball is as sure of hitting the target, if properly 

 directed, as if only sent the distance of two or three hundred yards ; 

 and the explanation of this fact lies in the construction and weight of 

 the ball, and not in the gun, as many suppose. 



There is, moreover, great misapprehension in the United States as 

 to the arm used by the Vincennes Chasseurs, it being generally 

 termed the "Minie rifle," without any distinct knowledge of what the 

 Minie rifle is. The fact is, there is no Minie rifle ; but there are two 

 kinds of balls, of which one is known as the ba/le-a-tige, introduced 

 into the French service by the French Commission of the School of 

 Practice, and the Minie ball, which is the invention of Major Minie. 

 The balle-a-tige is the one used in the French service : the Minie ball 



