348 Medieval and Modern Ordnance. [July, 
three lengths, each of two thicknesses, tied down to the base 
with longitudinal bars or ties connecting the breech and 
muzzlerings. In consequence of the failure of the contractors 
the mortars were not actually finished until a year and ten 
months after the order, long after the termination of the 
war, being finished by Messrs. Fawcett, Preston, and Co., 
from forgings supplied by Horsfall and Co. ‘The author had 
the pleasure of being present when some of the experiments 
were made with the first of these mortars, one of which was 
mounted for this purpose in the Woolwich Marshes. The 
shells of nearly 3000 lbs. weight had a capacity for nearly 
500 lbs. of powder, and were thrown to the maximum 
observed range of 2759 yards with a charge of 8o lbs. of 
powder, the. charge being arranged in bags by a gunner 
standing in the bore of the mortar. 
The shells, which cost by contract about £16 a-piece, 
after describing their trajectories through the air with a 
slow and noble motion,* penetrated into the moist soil to a 
depth varying from 20 to 30 feet. It is to be regretted that 
only nineteen rounds in all were fired, the great expenses 
incident on the repairs of defective rings, wedges, &c., led to 
the then Secretary of State for War, General Peel, putting 
an end to further experiments. Mr. Robert Mallet attri- 
butes the comparative failure of his mortars to the rapid 
combustion and brisante quality of the brutal large-grain 
cannon-powder employed; and, doubtless, had pebble- or 
prismatic-powder been then invented and employed, the 
results might have been far more satisfactory. It is not too 
late to repeat these experiments yet, and the realisation of 
Mr. Mallet’s cherished plans may not be beyond the bounds 
of possibility. The second of the two mortars, which has 
never been fired, is mounted in the Arsenal at Woolwich, 
where it forms a conspicuous object ; whilst the first, having 
been dismounted from its crumbling bed by the agency of 
gun-cotton, still lies, perhaps not uninjured, in the Wool- 
wich Marshes. 
Superior in weight to the Mallet mortar, the American 
Rodman guns do not throw such heavy projectiles; but 
still as smooth bores, the 20-inch guns, ‘‘ Beelzebub” and 
** Puritan,” the 1100-pounders, are formidable weapons of 
* The hemispheres of these fine shell being painted black and white, the 
gyrations were distinétly visible to the naked eye. Attempts were made 
without success to trace the trajectory of these great globes by means of photo- 
graphy, also by following with the point of a fine pencil the apparent fore- 
shortened path of the shell on the ground-glass plate of the camera previously 
divided into squares. 
