284 GUN-CAK1HAGK. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



GUN-CARRIAGE IRON SHIPS HYDRAULIC CRANE ICE MAKING - 



DRAINAGE OF HOLLAND CHAIN-PUMP OPEN-TOP CYLINDER 



HAYLE HARBOUR PATENT RIGHTS PETITION TO PARLIAMENT. 



"KiCHARD TREVITHICK, of the parish of Saint Erth, in the 

 county of Cornwall, civil engineer, maketh oath and saith 

 that he hath invented new methods for centering ordnance on 

 pivots, facilitating the discharge of the same, and reducing 

 manual labour in time of action. That he is the true inventor 

 thereof, and that the same hath not been practised by any other 

 person or persons whomsoever to his knowledge or belief. 



" Sworn, 10th November, 1827, before me, Ed. Edmonds." 



" This gun is worked by machinery balanced on pivots giving 

 it universal motion, by one man, with the facility of a soldier's 

 musket. On one side a man puts in a copper charge of powder ; 

 on the opposite side a man drops a ball in a bag down the gun, 

 as it stands muzzle up. The gunner, who sits on the seat 

 behind the gun, points it and pulls the trigger. The firing 

 causes it to run up an inclined plane at an angle of 25 for the 

 purpose of breaking the recoil ; it runs down again with its 

 muzzle at the port, requiring no wadding, swabbing, cartridge, 

 or ramming, but runs in, out, primes, cocks, shuts the pan, and 

 breaks the recoil of itself; and by three men can be fired three 

 times in a minute with accuracy. The gun-carriage is a tube 

 3 feet long and 3 feet diameter, made of wrought-iron plate 

 of an inch thick, centered on a pivot to the deck, with the 

 gunner's seat attached, from which he looks through the case. 

 As the gun requires no tackle, and but a man on each side to 

 work it, only a space of 5 feet 6 inches is required from centre 

 to centre of ports, therefore a single-deck ship will carry a 

 greater number of guns than are now carried on a double-deck 



