MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 47 



ordinary loading of a common gun. The priming of the rifle is in 

 small pills, of which one hundred are placed in a box, from, which the 

 gun supplies itself without fail. Journal of Commerce. 



A NEW GUN. 



MONSIEUR VANDENBERG, of Brussels, has invented a new gun, said 

 to be far better than the famous Prussian fire-needle gun. From six 

 to eight discharges can be made in a minute ; the carrying distance is 

 from 2,000 to 2,300 feet; the ball \veighs about one ounce and a quarter, 

 and the powder is one twelfth the weight of the ball. An ordinary 

 gun requires three times more powder, although the ball does not 

 weigh half an ounce. The new gun is loaded from the breech. The 

 shape of the ball is round, not conical, as in the Prussian gun. 



MACHINE FOR MAKING PERCUSSION CAPS. 



THERE is now in operation, at the Arsenal in Washington, a ma- 

 chine for making percussion caps, which is spoken of as being supe- 

 rior to any other in use. A sheet of copper, 14 by 28 inches, is placed 

 upon a plane surface, called a " table," and the motive power being 

 applied, the sheet, by an alternate motion, passes under the cutting 

 die, which forms perfect caps, and then throws them into holes around 

 the edge of the " charging-plate." This plate, which has a rotary 

 motion, is about eighteen inches in diameter. It carries the caps 

 round upon it, passing them successively under a cup containing the 

 percussion powder, from which a sufficient charge drops, with entire 

 regularity, into each cap. A little farther along is a very fine punch 

 which presses the powder home, and thus completes the process of 

 making, and after being carried on a short distance, they are thrown 

 out by a small machine into a funnel, through which they fall into a 

 drawer beneath. Thus, by the same unchanging motion, the cutting 

 die is furnished with the material, the caps are cut out, loaded, 

 pressed, and thrown into a drawer, at the rate of 4,000 an hour, with the 

 labor of only one person. 



NOVEL MODE OF WARFARE. 



AT the siege of Venice by the Austrian s, during the past summer, 

 an attempt was made to bombard the city by means of balloons, the 

 numerous marshes and lagunes in the vicinity preventing the near ap- 

 proach of artillery. Five balloons, each twenty-five feet in diameter, 

 were launched with a favorable wind, and directed as nearly over the 

 city as possible. To the cars were attached five bombs, communicating, 

 by means of a wire, with a large galvanic battery, placed on a 

 favorable station, on the ground. On the balloons attaining a nearly 

 vertical position over the point of attack, the fuses were ignited by 

 cutting the wire, the bombs falling perpendicularly, and exploding on 

 reaching the ground. The experiment, although ingeniously carried 

 out, proved a failure, the bombs producing little effect, other than 

 frightening the inhabitants of the city. 



