288 CHOKE-BORES. 



ble proof of its having been practised in this country, 

 according to the most approved manner of the present 

 day, over fifty years ago ; tlie earliest person I have 

 been able to trace a knowledo-e of it to being Jere- 

 miah Smith, a gunsmith of Smithfield, Rhode Island, 

 who discovered its merits in 1827. I have the evi- 

 dence of several disinterested parties to the effect that 

 Mr. Smith so bored guns at that time, and one Mr. 

 Nathaniel Whitmore, of Mansfield, Mass. (in his day a 

 noted rifle-maker), worked for Mr. Smith, learned this 

 method of boring from him, and afterward practised 

 it while doing business for himself, as numbers can 

 testify. That it must have been unknown in England 

 until very recent years, there is abundant cause for 

 believing, for among so many gunmakers the chances 

 for its having been very long kept a secret are slim in- 

 deed, and if understood by any of the larger manufac- 

 turers, the benefits to be derived from its practice 

 were far too great and many for them ever to have 

 considered it policy to conceal it, and otherwise the 

 knowledge, if it ever existed, must have very soon be- 

 come general. 



With the American gunsmith, in the rural districts 

 especially, doing a comparatively small business, the 

 case was widely different. It was an especial advan- 

 tage to him to keep all such processes a secret ; in time 



