MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 77 



Neic War Missile. Experiments have been recently made at Portsmouth, 

 England, for the purpose of testing the practicability of charging hollow shot 

 with molten iron, and discharging the same from ship's ordnance. The effects 

 of these globes of liquid metal striking a ship, are supposed to be, that they 

 Avould break, and, scattering the liquid metal on the wood-work of the ship, 

 at once set her on fire. In the experiments in question, a furnace was fitted 

 on the Colossus, an eighty-gun screw steamer, which proved capable of 

 supplying, without any difficulty, fully one ton of molten iron per hour. 

 The hollow iron shot were filled from this furnace, and then conveyed in an 

 iron bucket to a boat, which pulled aboard the practice-ship Excellent. The 

 average time from the metal being run off from the furnace until the missile 

 left the mouth of the gun on its errand of destruction, was six minutes. To 

 ascertain the effects of the practice, it was, of course, necessary that the shot 

 should effect a lodgment in the object fired at; but this was found, from the 

 rotten state of the hulk fired at, and the short range, eight hundred yards, 



to be a matter of too great difficulty. Ten shots were fired altogether, 

 two of which burst ; but the metal inside of them had lost too much of its 

 liquidity, from the length of time it had been drawn from the furnace, to pro- 

 duce the effects intended in its liquid state. 



Italian Infernal Machines. The machines used by the Italian conspirators, 

 in their diabolical attempt upon the life of the Emperor Napoleon in 18-57, 

 were constructed as follows : Each consisted of a hollow iron cylinder, 

 about four inches long and two and a half inches in diameter, divided into 

 two transversely, and terminated at each end by a hemispherical cover. 

 One of these covers was nearly an inch thick, and pierced with twenty-five 

 apertures, over which fulminating caps were placed on the exterior. The 

 other cover was considerably lighter, in order that when the missile was 

 thrown from a window or elsewhere, the explosive end might with certainty 

 strike the earth. -The cylinder and covers were coated with bronze-color 

 paint, to conceal the brightness of the metal. The cylinder was filled with 

 fulminate of mercury, or sonie explosive substance of equal intensity, in 

 consequence of which the murderous manufacturers had taken great precau- 

 tions in charging them. Instead of screwing the two parts of the cylinder 

 together, which might have been dangerous, they merely placed one part 

 within the other, and soldered round the joint on the outside. Other careful 

 arrangements were also adopted. The explosive force of these terrible mis- 

 siles may be conjectured from the fact, that the fulminating powder em- 

 ployed is fifty times more powerful in its effects than common gunpowder. 



Mechanics' Magazine, No. 1799. 



Dennet's Improvement in Bayonets. An improvement in the form of bayo- 

 nets, and the mode of fitting and using them, devised by Mr. Dennet, of 

 London, consists in forming bayonets of a lozenge, rhomboidal, or elliptic 

 section, the sides of which forms may be grooved out; and bayonets so 

 formed, instead of being used upon the musket, carbine, or rifle, as hereto- 

 fore, are so fixed that the sharp edge is coincident with the longitudinal axis 

 of the arm. The practice has heretofore been to expose one of the flat or 

 grooved faces of the bayonet to the line of discharge, or flight of the bullet; 

 this has been found extremely prejudicial to correct firing when the bayonet 

 is fixed ; as, from the reaction of the explosive force of the powder between 

 the concave, or flat surface of the bayonet and the ball, the latter is caused 

 to diverge from the correct line of flight. 



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