126 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



quite a distance from auy of the French works, and in a position showing 

 that they could have no connection with any of their Avorks on hind. 

 Neither could they have belonged to the vessels which they sank in the 

 harbour, for independent (>î the fact that these vessels would have had 

 guns of modern construction, these were not found in deep water. The 

 whole circumstances indicate that they belonged to some vessel or vessels 

 Avrecked on the spot. 



Moreover the cannon is constructed exactly after the model of English 

 guns of the 16th century. In a work entitled "The gun and its develop- 

 ment," by W. W. G-reene, published by Cassell k Co., page 24, there is a 

 representation of a cannon in the British Museum, marked as " an English 

 gun of the 16th century." The plate has no scale connected with it to 

 indicate the size of the cannon, but a comparison of it with a photograph 

 of the one found at Louisbourg will show that in form, appearance and 

 construction they are so much alike that they must have been formed 

 after the same pattern, so that the description of the one will serve for 

 the other. 



Such guns were originally constructed of iron bars laid side by side 

 longitudinally, and not even welded to each other, but kept together by 

 iron rings forced over them when red hot. In those of late date they 

 were welded, so as to form an internal tube. This from Louisbourg is 

 proved to be of malleable iron, but the point of junction of the sections 

 cannot be detected by the naked eye. It is without including the handle 

 five feet long. At the muzzle it is about four inches in diameter, with a 

 bore of about two inches and continues so for about three feet. On this 

 are nine small rings or hoops and a larger one at the muzzle, from an idea 

 prevalent then and long after that a gun needed to be specially strengthened 

 at that point. Three feet from the muzzle there is a shoulder increasing 

 the diameter to six inches, this continues to increase for a foot farther 

 when the whole is nine inches. Behind this is a chamber for the reception 

 of the breech block or vent piece. This is missing, but we can see exactly 

 what it was by the representation of the English one. It was made to 

 tit the chamber, and by a handle on the top could be lifted out or when 

 charged replaced, when it was retained in its place by round bolts passing 

 horizontal!}^ through the sides of the chamber into it. This cannon shows 

 the holes for the purpose. The butt was prolonged into a handle about 

 a foot long. 



On the sides of the barrel are two small trunnions, which enter into 

 what forms sockets in the two branches of a swivel arrangement on which 

 the whole is supported. In this way it could easily be raised or depressed 

 by means of the handle The two arms unite in a round bolt, which was 

 no doubt inserted in a socket, in whatever was used to support it, and by 

 which it might be swung round laterallj'. 



It seems then that this is a gun of the 16th century, the age of Gilbert, 

 and that it was lost in a vessel which was shipwrecked in Louisbourg 



