Mounting of Naval Ordnance, 153 



circumstance. He applies an axle with trucks to the breast- 

 carriage, lashes the crutch to the muzzle-ring, or astragal of 

 the gun, and thus constructs a four-wheeled carriage, of 

 which the gun itself becomes the perch ; and as the breast- 

 carriage and its trucks turn about the crutch-bolt, the whole 

 system is capable of taking any direction, with much greater 

 facility than the old carriage with its four trucks can ever 

 possess. 



We have thus very briefly analysed the two first sec- 

 tions of Captain Marshall's book, in which the detail of his 

 construction of gun-carriages necessarily includes the deve- 

 lopement of its properties ; but, in the following section, the 

 author more particularly enters into the training, elevating y 

 and the action of recoiling, on all which subjects he displays 

 both true reasoning and professional knowledge of the wants 

 of naval artillery — wants that land artillerists cannot be sup- 

 posed to have any practical acquaintance with ; and no doubt 

 it is owing to the circumstance of our naval ordnance being 

 organized, as it were, in a department especially devoted 

 to the pursuits and inquiries of land artillery, that so little 

 has been done in accommodating heavy cannon to the ser- 

 vice of our marine. This is perfectly natural in result ; — 

 how can it be supposed that men, whose ideas from educa- 

 tion and long habits are indissolubly connected with a solid 

 and immoveable platform, and a defined routine of action, can 

 appreciate and know how to contend with a service where 

 everything is changing its position, and fresh exigencies 

 continually arise ? Not only the battery itself, but its very 

 platform, and the object at which its fire is directed, have 

 each their distinct motions of translation and rotation, and 

 require from their combinations a rapid and varying adjust- 

 ment. What would be said if the numerous improvements 

 which are daily taking place in the equipment of our land 

 service artillery were to be laid before a committee of naval 

 officers to decide upon as to efficacy r would it not be regarded 

 by the most common capacity as utterly inconsistent with rea- 

 son ? The question need not be answered here ; but do we 

 not behold as gross an anomaly in making a committee of 

 land artillery officers arbiters in a case of which they can 

 have as little practical knowledge as a committee of naval 

 officers would have of the efficiency of a new travelling-car- 

 riage and its limber for a siege or field gun ? The fact is, 

 that all improvements attempted to be made in ordnance 

 or its equipment are referred, no matter whether affecting 

 our naval or land service, to men who are by profession only 

 capable of pronouncing on matters connected with the latter, 



