involved in the Construction q/ Artillery. 349 



dans cette partie, n'avaient pas ete realisees, lorsqu'on s'est arrete, dans la voie de modifi- 

 cations oil Ton etait entre." 



The value of vertical fiie from suitably constructed mortars remains yet to be fully 

 understood and developed, as the only means of obtaining greatly extended ranges. Recent 

 trials, proving the facility with which shells filled with melted cast-iron may be discharged, 

 add immensely to tlie value of vertical fire, by providing an effective incendiary projectile, 

 whose density is little short of that of a solid shot, and therefore capable of projection to 

 an immensely increased range, at 45°, over any ordinary shell or hollow projectile. 



As indicating, forcibly, the important results to be anticipated from increasing the 

 weight and power of our artillery in all its species, I have deemed tliis Note, though long, 

 not irrelevant to the text of a work, whose object is to point out some of the principles 

 upon which such aggrandizements of power must depend. 



Note C.-(Sect. 2.) 



There liave been two great epochs of increased strength in tlie history of gunpowder: the 

 first, and very early one, when refined saltpetre began to be substituted for the crude salt, 

 containing not less than 25 per cent, of inert or injurious matter; the second, dating from 

 the sixteenth century, when the graining or corning of the dusty meal-powder, before alone 

 in use for cannon, became common. 



The sulphur of early powder, probably, did not differ very materially from that now 

 employed ; but no determinate rules as to the best quality of charcoal, or of special methods 

 for its preparation, appear to have been established until times comparatively recent. 



Motives of economy, probably, induced a parsimonious use of nitre, in most of the earlv 

 powders, while this material (at all times the most costly element of powder) was collected 

 in Europe, and previous to the opening up of the vast supplies now derived from India_ 

 According to Tartaglia, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, cannon powder was 

 composed of four parts of nitre, one part of sulphur, and one part of charcoal, which is equi- 

 valent to only 66f per cent, of nitre; while musket powder contained 77 per cent. For 

 the composition of powder in the time of Cardan (1501-1575) vide Fred. Hoefer's "Hist. 

 de la Chiraie," t. 2, p. 101. It would be a matter of great interest to ascertain the price of 

 powder, at the earliest, and for successive periods downwards, in the history of Europe. 



The chief European Government powders of the present day have the following com- 

 positions : — 



VOL. XXIU. 2 z 



