2l8 ON THE WING. 



" It may be said that the fibres in the Damascus, 

 after being torn asunder, are welded anew. True, 

 but could you ever glue the fibres of a piece of wood 

 (twisted in the same way) together again, to make 

 them as strong as before ? No, cut several pieces of 

 wood across the grain and glue them together, you 

 would not expect them, though equal in substance 

 with a piece in which the grains run lengthwise, to 

 be of equal strength. In short, I hold a Damascus 

 barrel to be little superior to a common barrel, in 

 which the fibres run parallel to the bore. 



"All the varieties of figured barrels are but modifica- 

 tions of Damascus. The most endless variety possible 

 may be attained ; a figure with the carbonized mate- 

 rial, showing only the ends or edges of the various 

 laminae, or portions of the face of that laminae, may 

 with equal facility be obtained, if the patience of the 

 artist be in proportion. It would be a never-ending 

 task, a subject for many volumes, to endeavor to 

 describe a tithe of the varieties that might be, and 

 have been made. 



" The Belgians are very expert at this sort of orna- 

 mental work. The very minute Damascus figure they 

 frequently produce is admirable, if beauty alone were 

 the advantage sought in a gun-barrel. They use 

 thirty-two alternate bars of steel and iron, and roll 

 them into a sheet of 3-i6ths thick, and then slit them 

 by a machine into square rods ; these are twisted in the 

 way just described, but to such an extreme as to re- 

 semble the threads of a very fine screw : six of them 

 are welded into one, instead of three as with us. The 



