1872] Notices of Books. 363 
taneous disintegration from the large proportion of associated 
iron pyrites, it is evident that the greatest care and economy 
should be exercised in the transport of the fuel. Hence Mr. 
Danvers’s subject is invested with peculiar interest in our Indian 
possessions. Nevertheless his book contains so much that is 
valuable, that it may be studied with almost equal profit at home 
by all who are practically interested in the welfare of the British 
coal trade. 
A Text-Book of the Construction and Manufacture of the Rifled 
Ordnance in the British Service. By Captain F. S. Stoney, 
R.A., Assistant Superintendent Royal Gun Factories; and 
Lieutenant C. Jones, R.A., Instructor Royal Gun Factories. 
Corrected up to January, 16th, 1872. Printed under the 
Superintendence of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. 
Captain Stoney and Mr. Jones, in their carefully compiled Text- 
Book, supply a want which has long been felt by students in the 
Royal Gun Factories at Woolwich Arsenal. Both Naval and 
Military as well as civilian Artillerists have all experienced the 
great difficulty of keeping pace with the constant and rapid 
change both in modern ordnance and its matériel, more espe- 
cially since the introduction within the last ten or twelve years 
of various systems of rifling, followed by their inevitable train of 
new inventions, in the shape of fuzes, explosives, &c. 
This difficulty has hitherto been enhanced from the fact 
of there having been no authorised text-book to start from as a 
recognised stand-point of departure. 
It is with great satisfaction, then, that we hail the publication 
of a work compiled by two such competent authorities as the 
late Assistant-Superintendent and the present Instructor at 
the Woolwich Gun Factories, to which department of the 
Arsenal the volume is creditable. 
In a technical work of this description there is naturally 
no room for originality, but a practical gunner can alone fully 
appreciate the vast amount of nice research required, and 
the laborious care necessary to collect and arrange the formid- 
able array of minute details which, however apparently trivial 
in themselves, are in reality of the most practical importance as 
a whole when brought together within manageable compass. 
Such condensation can only result from sound knowledge 
of the subject and ability on the part of the compilers; and, 
judging from the result, the authors of the present volume under 
notice appear to possess both. 
The text is well illustrated with eleven lithographed detailed 
coloured plates, comprising all the wrought-iron muzzle-loading 
guns, as well as the small steel and bronze Abyssinian and 
Indian guns, besides numerous woodcuts of details, fittings, &c. 
