46 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



fathoms in a straight and unerring direction. A second time it was 

 thrown to a distance of 30 fathoms, where it struck a bng of cork. 

 This gun has been used on board of the Favorite, a whaling ship, 

 with very great success, and during one voyage, though she had but 

 one gun and three harpoons, 14 sperm and a large number of right 

 whales were shot with it, some of them being killed on the spot. 



A NEW RIFLE. 



THIS rifle, known as Jennings's Patent Rifle, is designed to be an 

 almost endless repeater, and to avoid the great difficulty of capping or 

 priming each load, and also to be uncommonly free from dirt. In ap- 

 pearance the rifle is of the ordinary size, without encumbrance of any 

 kind. Its weight is no greater than the ordinary weight of a common 

 gun, and it only differs from the latter externally, in having an iron 

 breech with a wooden stock, which breech is handsomely finished and 

 engraved. By a simple contrivance within this stock, the breech-pin 

 of the barrel is opened as the gun is cocked. A cartridge (of which 

 we shall speak) is placed in this opening, and on pulling the trigger, 

 the pin closes the barrel tight, a strong block of steel falls behind it, 

 and the gun primes itself and is discharged all at one motion. There 

 is nothing complicated in the machinery, but, on the contrary, it is so 

 simple that it can hardly by any accident get out of order, and in case 

 of such accident, any worker in iron can repair the break. By this 

 contrivance a rifle is made capable of being loaded at the breech as 

 often as it is fired off, and as rapidly as a man's hand can move to 

 throw in a cartridge. This is at the rate of twelve shots per minute, 

 for a person who has practised with the gun ; a velocity sufficient to 

 make one man fully equal to a dozen armed with ordinary rifles. 

 Another variety of the same gun is now nearly completed by the pat- 

 entees, which differs not at all from this in external appearance, ex- 

 cept that in place of the ramrod is a tube of the same size, capable of 

 containing twenty-four cartridges, which, by a very simple contriv- 

 ance, are so arranged that they are placed in the barrel, one by one, 

 and fired successively without any interruption. The moment that 

 the twenty-fourth ball is fired, this gun may be used as the first one, 

 loaded at the breech, and be fired at the rate of twelve in a minute. 

 But the chief strength of this formidable weapon rests on the car- 

 tridge which is used, and for which the gun is expressly manufactur- 

 ed. This cartridge, which is also patented, is simply a loaded ball. 

 A hollow cone of lead, or rather a bullet elongated on one side in a 

 hollow cylinder to about one inch in length, is filled with powder, and 

 the end covered with a thin piece of cork, through the centre of 

 which is a small hole, to admii fire from the priming. As each ball 

 goes out, the cork cap remains in the barrel, and is carried out in front 

 of the next ball, sweeping thoroughly all the dirt with it. The gun 

 may thus be discharged from forty to fifty times in good weather, 

 without needing a swab. The barrel may be detached at a single 

 blow of a hammer or stone, and a swab run through it in a moment, 

 at any time ; the operation of cleansing occupying no longer than the 



