552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



periraents. Here he determined the effects of every pitch and kind of 

 rifling, and of every length of projectile, from the sphere to a missile 

 having a length of twenty times its diameter ; and the princiijles which 

 he determined upon, of a projectile elongated to from three to five 

 times its diameter, with a rapid rotation and a quick uniform rifling 

 pitch of polygonal form, have been extensively adopted. 



The same principles were found to be equally applicable to large 

 guns, and the continued labors of the discoverer of them resulted in 

 the production of the Whitworth cannon, which are declared to be the 

 best the world has yet witnessed, " the most enduring, the most accu- 

 rate, the most powerful in penetration, and the longest in range." But 

 with all these advantages " the principles established by Whitworth 

 were not adopted into the service, for reasons which it would probably 

 be more curious than edifying to investigate." 



Mr. Whitworth was embarrassed in the prosecution of his experi- 

 ments by the difficulty of getting metal of the right kind. Mild steel, 

 which gave the nearest approach to the desired qualities, was not 

 wholly satisfactory, because the same properties which gave it tough- 

 ness and ductility, gave also a tendency in the course of cooling, to 

 imprison the escaping gases and cause unsoundness. To obviate this 

 defect he applied the process of compression with hydraulic power, 

 whereby the particles of the fluid metal were driven into closer con- 

 tact and the gases were squeezed out. This process, by which the 

 greatest strength was combined with the least weight and bulk, proved 

 to be generally applicable, and is now largely employed for those 

 structures in which it is desired that those qualities shall dwell to- 

 gether. 



Early in 18G9 Mr. Whitworth founded the Whitwortli scholarships, 

 assigning for the purpose £3,000 a year in perpetuity, or the interest 

 on a capital sum of £100,000. The fund was vested in the President 

 of the Privy Council, or other minister of public instruction for the 

 time being, and was intended, as its institutor explained in a letter to 

 Mr. Disraeli, to promote the engineering and mechanical industry of 

 the country by a system of scholarship prizes to be made accessible on 

 fairly equal terms of competition to students combining some practice 

 with their theory, and to intelligent artisans uniting some theoretical 

 knowledge with perfection of workmanship. The scholarships were 

 valued at £100 a year, and were tenable for three years, to be obtained 

 on competitions which were open to all Her Majesty's subjects at home, 

 in India, and in the colonies, who had not completed their twenty- 

 sixth (afterward changed to twenty-third) year. r>y regulations after- 

 ward prescribed to insure the holders of the scholarships devoting 

 themselves to the studies and practice necessary for mechanical engi- 

 neering during the tenure of the scholarships, it was required that every 

 candidate should produce a certificate that he had worked in a me- 

 chanical engineer's shop or in the drawing-office of a mechanical engi- 



