involved in the Construction of Artillery. 307 



interior of a musket or fowling-piece, as upon a wrought-iron can- 

 non ; but who ever heard of either having become enlarged or 

 destroyed through inevitable corrosion, under circumstances of 

 ordinary care and cleaning, alike applicable to both ? 



Examples are given, in Note A, of wrought-iron guns that have 

 been exposed to the weather for centuries, and yet are nearly as 

 serviceable as they ever were. 

 6°. And lastly, that "wrought-iron guns have been repeatedly attempted 

 to be made, and have never yet succeeded," therefore, they never 

 will succeed ; and, in any case, the doubtfulness produced by 

 " previous failures, as to the safety of any such giui, must produce 

 a very bad moral effect on the gunners who serve them." 



With what fully equal force might this have been brought for- 

 ward when cast-iron guns were first proposed, made, and gradually 

 introduced ; and at last have superseded all gun-metal guns for 

 garrison, naval, and siege use ; although not known, in England 

 at least, prior to the middle of the sixteenth century, and attended 

 with many failures, not only at first, but even to this day ; and 

 how entirely does it ignore the vast changes in metallurgic know- 

 ledge and manipulative power that have taken place within the 

 last thirty years, as respects iron. 



316. The Special Objections to Wrought-iron Guns, built up of separate pieces, 

 — so far as they have occurred to, or have been heard of by, the author — 

 are : — 



1". That the integrant portions of the gun cannot be insured to act 

 together, or with the required concert of resistance, to the explo- 

 sion, &c. This appears to be disposed of by what precedes ; in 

 which it is shown that the very aim and purpose of a gun, built 

 up in the way proposed, is to produce the certainty of greater con- 

 cert and unity of reaction of all the parts of the gun against the 

 discharge, than is physically possible in guns cast or forged in one 

 solid piece. The dislocations which have been the frequent 

 results of the very first discharge, from many built-up guns within 



