1 34 Cincinnati Society of A^atural Hi story » 



A bad fuse will prematurely burst the shell in the gun and 

 •destroy the gun. 



Mr. Parrott said that his big guns, in the Navy, endured well. 

 This may have been due to the cleanness of the guns on the water, 

 for on land the rifled grooves would get clogged with sand and 

 €arth thrown up by the enemy's shot, or introduced on the 

 rammer. 



Our Generals dislike to fire oftener than is necessary, as every 

 shot diminishes the life of the gun. A perfect record is kept of 

 each shot fired, and when 500 shots have been expended, the life 

 of the gun is half over. 



We had a 30-pounder on Morris Island which fired 4,606 times, 

 at 40° elevation, and most of the shells, 4,253, reached the city of 

 Charleston. I miJe a post-mortem portrait of the fragments. 



At the mouth of the Savannali River, on Cockspur' Island, 

 stood a casemated fort, called Fort Pulaski. The walls were of 

 the best brick, laid in hydraulic mortar or cement, and 7^ feet 

 in thickness and 25 feet in height, surrounded by a ditch 45 feet 

 wide and 6 feet deep. At the gorge, or back wall of the fort, was 

 an earth-work, called a demi-lune, with a ditch 32 feet wide. 



This fort was garrisoned by 3O0 men, with the full complement 

 of officers, and was supplied with armament, ammunition and pro- 

 visions. One would have thought this fort impregnable, especially 

 as the nearest point for erecting tiie batteries was on the south 

 bank of the Savannah River, one mile distant. It was there that 

 General Gillmore established his batteries of Parrott and James' 

 rifled guns. He opened fire on the loth of April, 1862, and the 

 fort surrendered at 2 v. m. on the nth. In that short time a breach 

 had been made through the 71^ feet thickness of wall of 30 feet 

 wide, and then every shell was dropping on the powder magazines 

 of the north and south ends of the gor^e wall. 



Without the effective powers of the big guns, Fort Pulaski was 

 impregnable to all the efforts of infantry, cavalry and field artillery. 



The breaching of the walls of such a fort, at a mile distant, was 

 a new event in tlie era of military records. 



The capture of the south end of Morris Island and Fort Wagner, 

 with its strong bomb-proof shelter, adds more evidence of the 

 efficiency of big guns. 



Fort Sumter also was bombarded. It consisted of two tiers of 

 casemates, and in a short time the upper row of casemates was 



