90 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



almost invariably experienced by a new maker in producing shells of the 

 required exactness, there was considerable delay and much disappointment 

 experienced, both by the government and the contractors. 



A new foundcry was therefore built by government at Woolwich, and fur- 

 nished with a set of apparatus capable of delivering two hundred tons of 

 shot and shells daily, if such should ever be required. It is provided with 

 fifty horse-power to work the machinery, eight large cupolas, and every fa- 

 cility for carrying on the shot and shell manufacture economically. The 

 fuel and iron pass in at one side of the establishment ; the moulds are con- 

 veyed by railway from the moulding area to the vicinity of the cupolas for 

 the reception of the liquid metal, then, without having been removed from 

 the carnage, they arc conveyed onwards to the breaking up and cleaning de- 

 partment ; the shells are put into the cleaning machine, and the moulding 

 boxes with the core spindles undergo a rigid examination before being re- 

 turned to the moulding area. The sand also has to be broken up, remixed, 

 and sifted by machinery before it is returned to the moulders. The shells 

 roll on to the bushing machines, after which, by their own gravity, they will 

 roll along a suitable rail across the arsenal, out into the river by means of a 

 long tube, and into the hold of a vessel for transportation. 



In one day of twenty-four hours, during the late war, upwards of 10,400 

 shells passed through the machinery, a feat which probably could not have 

 been accomplished in any other workshop in the world. 



Towards the close of 1854, an urgent demand was made from the Crimea 

 for wrought iron shells, an article of peculiar shape, not unlike an immense 

 champagne bottle, which it was found impossible to get by contract in suffi- 

 cient time and quantity to meet the demand. In this emergency, a factory 

 capable of producing one hundred of these shells daily was erected ; it 

 covers 30,000 square feet, contains four steam engines, seven steam ham- 

 mers, and upwards of forty machines of various descriptions, many of them 

 original and specially adapted to this manufacture. 



These shells are made out of a single plate or slab of iron into an article 

 resembling a bottle in form, with six or seven heatings ; a remarkable ex- 

 ample of Avliat well organized arrangements will accomplish. The shells, 

 having to be of one uniform weight, are turned in a lathe, both inside and 

 externally. The lathe-spindle, however, is a hollow trunk, which holds a 

 shell at both ends, and each shell is acted upon by a dozen or more cutting 

 tools simultaneously on both sides, and in opposite directions ; thus the whole 

 apparatus is thrown into a condition of equilibrium, and relieved of the in- 

 ordinate amount of friction which would otherwise exist, and the time re- 

 quired is reduced in proportion. 



IMPROVED METHOD OF MAKING CARTRIDGES. 



The following is a description of a new method of making cartridges, re- 

 cently introduced into the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, England : 



Hitherto small arm cartridges have been made up with several pieces of 

 paper that were rolled into the proper form, to hold the bullet and powder, 

 ail arrangement which has been found liable to some important objections. 



