MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 47 



The charge was twenty-eight ounces of powder, the service charge for an 

 orclinaiy gun of the same calibre being fifty-six ounces. With the twenty- 

 eight ounces, however, the force and velocity of the shot seemed enormous ; 

 the flight was low, the ricochet very great, and nearly always to the 

 right, in the direction of the pitch of the riding. One shot, after passing 

 through the target, first grazed the sand at 2,200 yards, then again at 3000, 

 after which it went on ricochetting along the shore, touching it every 200 

 or 300 yards, until it buried itself 5600 yards from the place where it was 

 discharged; the elevation of the gun was I 1 28, at which the recoil was very 

 little, the explosion much less than that of an ordinary field-piece, and the 

 noise occasioned by the flight of the shot comparatively very slight. One 

 man served the gun with the utmost ease, withdrawing with screw nippers 

 the tin cartridge-case from the breech after each shot. The length of Whit- 

 worth's twelve-pounder is about six feet, its bore nearly three inches, and the 

 pitch or turn of the rifling the same as that of all his light guns, one com- 

 plete turn in forty inches; or, roughly speaking, the shot makes nearly two 

 complete revolutions on its axis before it leaves the gun. The bore of the 

 three-pounder is about three and a half inches diameter. Practice with this 

 three-pounder commenced with ten degrees elevation at 4000 } r ards, the 

 charge being only seven and a half ounces of powder. The working features 

 of the gun were the same as we have noticed in the twelve-pounder, except 

 that one man worked the gun with much greater ease, firing it, without the 

 least attempt at hurry, four times in less than four minutes. The sound of 

 the projectile also was scarcely audible. 



The elevation was then altered to twenty degrees, the same charge of seven 

 and a half ounces being continued for the range of posts, from 0000 to 7000 

 yards distant. The first shot at this tremendous range struck the sand at 

 6,760 yards, and only five yards to the left of the true line. The second 

 struck at 6,784, and twelve yards from the true line in the same direction. 

 The third, at 6,720, was sixteen yards out of the line. This deviation to the 

 left was contrary to the usual deviation of the gun, and arose from a rather 

 strong wind which had set in from the sea. The gun was therefore laid 

 more to the right, and threw a fourth shot 6,910 yards distance, and only 

 two yards to the left of the true line ! The charge of powder was then 

 increased to eight ounces, and the elevation of the gun raised to thirty-five 

 degrees. The practice then made was really extraordinary. The first shot 

 alighted in the sand at 8,970 yards' distance, only twenty-two yards to the 

 right of the line. The second fell at 8,930 yards, and only ten yards left of 

 the line; the third, 9,059 yards, ten yards to the right; and the fourth at the 

 immense range of 9,164 yards, and twenty-two yards to the right. Midway 

 between the guns and the target the flight of the projectiles over head could 

 just be heard, and no more. 



The eighty-pounder was then loaded at five degrees elevation, with twelve 

 pounds of powder, with which .charge it threw a ninety-pound projectile, 

 with a fearful roar, a distance of 2,550 yards, when it ricochetted at right 

 angles and buried itself in the sea at an immense distance. A second shot, 

 with the same charge, first grazed the sand 2,620 yards distant from the gun, 

 and only two to the fight of the true line. From this point it glanced 

 upwards, but continued a straight course onward, alighting in the sand at a 

 distance of over 6000 yards from the gun. Had this piece been mounted so 

 as to permit of its being fired at a high degree of elevation, there is not 

 the least doubt but that it would have thrown its ponderous shot a distance 



