involved in the Construction of Artillery. 331 



by tlieir discharge. In the most of them the touch-holes are as large as the barrel of a 

 musket; the great mass of powder ignites slowly, and a good deal of it is always blown 

 ■ out of the mouth. 



" The report is very violent, but dead, and is not nearly so painful to the ear as that of 

 an 18-pounder in a casemate. 



" It is easy to follow the ball, blackened with powder, with the eye, and it is frequently 

 seen to split into two or more pieces; huge jets of water are thrown up when it strikes 

 the surface of the sea, as the ball, fired off in Europe, slowly ricochets across the water 

 till it reaches the Asiatic shore. 



" These giant cannons of the Dardanelles have this disadvantage, that they can only fire 

 straight before them, and that they take very long to load ; but then the effect of a single 

 ball that does hit, is tremendous. 



" When Admiral Duckworth sailed through the Straits in 1807, all the preparations for 

 defence (vere of the most wretched description ; nevertheless, his fleet suffered considerable 

 injury, especially from the kemerlicks ; a granite ball of 800 lbs. weight, 2 ft. 2 in. in 

 diameter, to the great astonishment of the sailors, broke through the whole bed for the 

 anchor (carried away the bitts, probably ?) on board the Active, and, after crushing this mass 

 of strong timber, rolled slowly across the deck. Another ball carried away the wheel of 

 the Republic, and killed or wounded twenty-four men. 



" The mainmast of the Wyndham was carried away, and the forecastle of the Royal 

 George, a 110-gun-ship, was shattered by a single ball, so that she was near sinking, and 

 could only be saved by very great exertions. Our readers are, no doubt, aware that in sea- 

 fights the holes made by the cannon-balls below the ship's water-line are plugged by men 

 appointed with conical pins of wood to prevent the water from pouring in. But it would 

 manifestly be impossible to plug a hole 2\ ft. in diameter." 



I have quoted Moltke at length, as indicating the views of an experienced Prussian 

 officer, as to the value and effective power of guns of this large size, projecting balls at a 

 very moderate velocity ; both which have been very commonly sneered at by artillery 

 authorities. The last two years, however, have seen the introduction of iron-cased floatino- 

 batteries (said also to be due, in conception, to the genius of the Emperor of the French), 

 which, so far as they have been tried, bid defiance to the effects of any of the usual sizes of 

 siege or battery shot propelled at high velocities. 



If we are to make the means of defence, again, equal to the means of attack which these 

 batteries have developed, it must be by providing our own strongliolds and harbours with 

 the means of throwing shot and shells of enormous weight and at low velocities (500 to 800 ft. 

 per second), whose moraentiun shall not be arrested, or the shot shattered against and by 

 the inertia of the iron plates, but shall at a blow crush in a large portion of the side, 

 driving in both plates and timbers before it. Neglecting this until the hour of future peril 



