ARTILLERY 



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Threave Castle, The weight of a granite ball of 19 J inches diameter is about 

 330 Ibs. 



Colonel Symes, in his 'Embassy to Ava, in 1795,' informs us that he found that 

 cannon formed of prismatic bars of wrought hoop-iron hooped together were known 



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in India from a remote antiquity. In Meyer's ' Historical Manual ' will be found a 

 curious history of the progress of wrought-iron cannon, from 1494 when Charles VIII. 

 suppressed wrought-iron bombards, and had no other artillery than that of bronze to 

 the present day. In 1856, Daniel Treadwell published a memoir ' on the Practica- 

 bility of constructing Cannon of Great Calibre, capable of enduring long-continued 

 Use under full Charges.' In this he proposes a very large wrought-iron gun, which 

 should be capable of projecting a shot or shell of a ton weight through the space of 

 six miles. He says, in a note to this paper, ' Between the years 1841 and 1845, 1 made 

 upwards of twenty cannon of this material (wrought-iron). They were all made up 

 of rings, or short hollow cylinders, welded together endwise. Each ring was made 

 of bars wound upon an arbour spirally, like winding a ribbon upon a block, and, being 

 welded and shaped in dies, were joined endwise when in the furnace and at a weld- 

 ing heat, and afterwards pressed together in a mould by a hydrostatic press of 1,000 

 tons force.' Finding in the early stage of the manufacture that the softness of the 

 wrought-iron was a serious defect, he formed those made afterwards with a lining 

 of steel, the wrought-iron bars being wound upon a previously formed steel ring. 



Mr. Nasmyth undertook, in 1854, an enormous wrought-iron gun, of 13 inches 

 calibre ; but there was some failure in the forging. 



In 1 856, Messrs. Horsfall, of Liverpool, completed, and proved with a solid shot of 

 300 Ibs. and 45 Ibs. of powder, a wrought-iron gun, 13 inches calibre, and 13 feet 

 length of chase, perhaps the largest and most remarkable forging ever made. Two 

 wrought-iron mortars, of 36 inches calibre, built up of separate pieces, were constructed 

 about the same time for the Government, from the designs of Mr. Mallet. A detailed 

 account of this monster mortar is given at page 235. 



Cast-Iron Guns. The date of the introduction of cast-iron guns is very uncertain. 

 Blast furnaces for smelting replaced the old Catalan methods about the commence- 

 ment of the fifteenth century, were known in the Hartz, in Westphalia, in Flanders, 

 and seem to have come to us thence, and were not uncommon about the middle of the 

 century. There is in the repository at Woolwich an 18-inch Pierriere, captured at 

 Corfu, with the date 1684 upon it, an early example of cast-iron. 



In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the average sizes of guns in England 

 were as follow : 



The smaller sizes were called minion, falcon, falconet, rabinet, and base, the last of 

 which only carried a 5-ounce ball of lead. 



Cannon of Bronze. The earliest bronze guns appear to have been cast in Europe 

 about 1370. Between that and 1400, bombards were cast (after the more ancient 

 models of iron) in bronze with separate and with attached chambers (canons a boite), 



