366 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



CENTRIFUGAL GUN. 



The subject for discussion, " steam guns," was then taken up. 



Mr. Dibben said that the only practical mode of using steam 

 for guns, which had been yet proposed, was in connection with 

 the centrifugal gun. He should, therefore, confine his remarks 

 to that. All centrifugal guns are composed of a hopper through 

 which the balls are introduced ; a descending tube which con- 

 veys the balls, one by one, to a revolving disk, and a passage" 

 or barrel through which the balls are ejected in succession. The 

 barrel is largest near the revolving disk, and is curved in sucli 

 manner that the ball shall enter it in a tangent to the revolving 

 disk, and it is proposed that it should quit it in a tangent to the 

 circle within whose periphery the cavil and disk are included. 

 Mr. Dibben was of opinion that the latter condition was 

 impossible. That the great difficulty in the use of the 

 centrifugal guns is to give the balls the desired direc- 

 tion without impairing their momentum. The balls will all 

 have the same direction, if the barrel is moved, horizontally; 

 that is, they will all strike ii^ a horizonal line ; but the lateral 

 deviation will be very great and uncertain, depending upon the 

 velocity of the ball at the moment of discharge. It, therefore, 

 becomes incapable of efficient service. In an experiment, he 

 had seen, the first balls went through an inch plank, at the dis- 

 tance of one hundred yards, but the last ones only indented it. 

 The balls weighed an ounce or more, and the diameter of the 

 disk was a little more than five feet. 



Every precaution is now taken in fire-arms to secure accuracy 

 of aim. It is not now a question of one hundred yards, but of 

 tliree or four hundred yards. We not only make the ball of just 

 such a size and shape, make the bore smooth and true, and pro- 

 vide for accurate loading ; but, not satisfied with this, we rifle 

 the barrel to overcome what remaining inequalities may exist. 

 And with a good scrapnel shot, we may, at a distance of five 

 hundred yards, cover a line of men so that every man of them 

 shall be shot down, the shot going with accuracy a certain dis- 

 tance, and then exploding, sending a shower of balls all within 

 a certain angle. • 



The steam gun is objectionable, not only on account of its 

 inaccuracy of aim, but for its want of portability, and for its 

 vulnerability. The boiler is a large mark, and a single shot 



