328 Mr. Mallet on the Physical Conditions 



wrought-iron breech; the other, a breech formed of a bronze plug, cast into the iron, thus 

 corabiniug in one gun the two metals. 



The causes which led to the change have not, that I am aware of, been previously viewed 

 in this light; and I enlarge upon them because, in many important works upon modern 

 artillery, the abandonment of wrought-iron, at this early period, has been, by a misconcep- 

 tion of its causes, made, falsely, an argument against the advantages of wrought-iron as a 

 material for ordnance at this present day, forgetful utterly of the vast diflFerence between 

 the materials, tools, and workmanship, of the blacksmith M'Kin and his sons, and the 

 iron works and workshops of our England of to-day. 



The bell-founder's art, kept alive throughout the Dark Ages by the use of large church 

 bells from the sixth century, was at once applicable to the casting of guns in Europe. In 

 the east, and amongst the Arabs and Turks, there was nothing to learn, — bronze-founding 

 had existed, and been in continual use throughout Asia, from the days of Tubal. 



We find, therefore, at the earliest period of bronze artillery, in Europe and the Eastern 

 Empire, castings made of a magnitude that has never been surpassed since. Gun-founding 

 in bronze, upon an equally large scale, had most probably been known in India from a long 

 anterior period. 



At Marienberg, in Saxony, as early as 1408, a bronze gun, of more than 6 tons, was 

 cast; at Sienna, a gun, with separate chamber, carrying a ball of 375 lbs., and of a total 

 weight of 11 tons; 50 and 100-pounders, at Gand and Amsterdam. The crafty and 

 energetic Louis XI. had bronze bombards, throwing an iron ball of 500 French lbs., and 

 twelve very heavy guns of position, three, cast each, at Paris, at Tours, at Orleans, and at 

 Amiens, all between 1400 and 1500. 



These guns, as well as some of Francis I., had no breech buttons (La Martilliere, 

 t. i., p. 245), — a proof that even yet (though, perhaps, with trunnions) the recoil was chiefly 

 received against the breech. These guns were usually cast with the muzzle downwards, 

 and upon a core, as was the case with a very large gun of nearly the same form, but of 

 eastern founding, and with oriental inscriptions in relief, taken by us at Acre, and now in 

 the Proof Department Square, Woolwich Arsenal. 



The next century saw the greatest advances in the power of artillery, of any equal 

 period since its introduction. The corning or graining of powder, long in use for small 

 arms, was now substituted for the dusty meal powder, which had alone been previously 

 used for cannon, and universally applied on the Continent, though its adoption in England 

 does not seem to have occurred until about James I.'s time. (See " Tartaglia," and Preface 

 to Robins' Tracts.) 



Charles VIII., Louis XII., and tlie Emperor Charles V., constructed large and effective 

 siege trains, and tlie first really field trains, " marchant sur I'affuts." 



Guns of the heaviest class were still cast : at Milan a 70-pounder, at Buis Ic Due another. 



