633 



CARTRIDGE. 



CARTS AND WAGGONS. 



634 



The Apostles healing the sicken the Temple. 

 The miraculous draught of fishes. 



This is not the'place to speak at length of the merits of these grand 

 works. It will be enough to say that they are xiniversally admitted 

 to be, as designs, the very finest of Raffaelle's works, and that they rank 

 among the very noblest productions of the painter's art. The com- 

 positions are in the highest degree masterly, and the stories intended 

 to be illustrated are told with the greatest perspicuity. In the details 

 they exhibit every variety of character and expression : the mild sub- 

 limity of our Saviour, the quiet dignity of the Apostles, admiration, 

 doubt, surprise, pain, fear, down to the careless innocence of childhood, 

 are all portrayed with a master's hand. The women are almost per- 

 fect delineations of grand female beauty, and the children, wherever 

 they are introduced, are models of infantine grace and simplicity. In 

 the arrangement of drapery Raffaelle was unrivalled, and the cartoons 

 offer the finest examples of excellence in this respect. These exquisite 

 works can scarcely be too often or too carefully studied by those who 

 desire to form a pure and elevated taste in design. 



These cartoons have been engraved by Dorigny, Audran, and 

 Holloway, and in a bold but effective manner (so as to be published at 

 a very moderate price), by John Burnet ; but during the summer of 

 1858 two series of photographs of the cartoons on an unusually large 

 scale, and separate studies of single figures, heads, &c., were made by 

 Messrs. Caldessi and Montecchi, and Mr. Thurston Thomson, which 

 afford copies of the cartoons infinitely preferable to the best engravings 

 for the purpose of study. There are engravings of a greater number 

 of the cartoons than those in the Engli-h collection, some of which 

 are taken from the tapestries ; of others it is believed the originals 

 no longer exist. Five from tapestries represent the Adoration of the 

 Kings Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen the Disciples at Emmaus 

 the Murder of the Innocents the Ascension. Others are described 

 by Fea, hi his ' Descrizione di Roma,' and Somereau, a French artist, 

 engraved them, with the whole series, in 4to. 



Two very fine cartoons hi black chalk, by Annibale Carracci, are now 

 in the National Gallery ; they were formerly in the collection of the 

 Earl of Elle^mere, who presented them to the nation. They are 

 studies for parts of the decoration of the Farnese Palace in Rome, and 

 offer examples of the free and large style of design which characterised 

 this artist's pencil. Some of the cartoons prepared by English artists 

 for the fresco decorations of the New Palace at Westminster, have been 

 placed in Hampton Court. 



CARTRIDGE, a cylindrical case, containing a charge of gunpowder 

 or shot, or of powder and ball, for fire-arms. Those used for military 

 purposes, to facilitate the loading of muskets, carbines, and pistols, are 

 formed of a strong hard paper manufactured for the purpose, called 

 cartridge-paper, and are styled ball or blank cartridges according as 

 they contain both powder and ball or powder only ; while the larger 

 cartridges for cannon and mortars, which always consist of powder 

 only, are usually cased with flannel, though sometimes paper, paste- 

 board, tin, or even wood is employed. The North Americans, during 

 then- last war with England, are said to have employed very thin sheets 

 of lead, resembling those used for lining tea-chests, for this purpose. 

 The advantage of such a substance is, that it obviates the danger of 

 burning particles of the cartridge-case which remain in the piece after 

 it ia fired, an accident which is liable to occur when flannel is used, 

 and which may be productive of the most fearful consequences. 



Wire cartridges, for containing a charge of small shot without 

 powder, are manufactured for sporting purposes. The author of the 

 article ' Shooting,' in the seventh edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Eri- 

 tannica,' states that they were invented in 1828 by Mr. Jenour, but 

 that they were not brought to perfection until nearly ten years later, 

 owing chiefly to the difficulty of regulating the precise time for the 

 dispersion of the shot. Eley's wire cartridges have been brought, by 

 successive improvements, to a high degree of efficiency, and are made 

 of various qualities, according to the distance at which the charge is 

 required to take effect. Wire cartridges consist of an inner case of 

 wire network, inclosed in a thin paper case, to the outer end of which 

 a wadding is attached. The shot, with which it is usual to mix bone- 

 dust or some other substance to fill up the interstices, is put within 

 this case, which is rammed down upon the charge of powder. When 

 the gun i fired, the paper case ia torn to pieces as soon as the cartridge 

 lavea the gun, and the. shot immediately begins to quit the cartridge 

 by passing through the meshes of the wire net work, which is carried 

 forward with the charge until it is quite empty, when it falls to the 

 ground. By this contrivance the leading of the gun is avoided, and 

 the recoil produced by the discharge is lessened, the charge leaving the 

 barrel like a bullet. The shots are also carried so much more closely 

 than when loose, that lighter charges, and consequently a lighter gun, 

 may be used ; much time is saved in loading, especially as no separate 

 wadding is required ; and, as the cartridge has no inclination to move 

 before it is impelled by the explosion of the powder, the danger arising 

 from the accidental shifting or rising of loose charges is avoided. 

 Greener, in his work entitled ' The Gun ; or, a Treatise on the various 

 descriptions of small Fire-arms,' which was published before wire 

 cartridges had been brought to then- present state of comparative per- 

 fection, suggests the use of a case of felt, made much thicker at the 

 bottom than at the sides, as a substitute for wire. 



In the ' Transactions of the Society of Arts,' vol. xlv. pp. 106, 107 



.s a description, illustrated by figures, of a machine invented by 

 Hr. Caffin for filling cartridges, in which two cylindrical cases, each of 

 which will contain the proper charge for one cartridge, open at both 

 ends and tapering a little at the lower end, are so mounted that by 

 moving a handle each may be brought alternately under a hopper, from 

 which it receives a supply of powder, and then over an aperture in a 

 Jate upon which it moves, through which the charge escapes by a 

 conducting channel into the paper case of the cartridge. With one of 

 these machines one boy is able to deliver 12,500 measures of powder in 

 a day, supplying the hopper himself. 



The cartridge employed for the rifles of the present day is made 

 with three pieces of paper : 1 st, a stiff paper is rolled ro und the mandrill , 

 a wooden cylinder of the size of the cartridge ; 2nd, an envelope of 

 thin paper is wound round this and folded into the hollow at the end 

 of the mandrill, and pressed in with a " former," which has a conical 

 point of the shape of the bullet ; 3rd, the bullet is put with its point 

 into this cavity, and the whole wound round with another layer of 

 thin paper, or outer envelope, and fastened under the bullet. The 

 mandrill being then withdrawn, the powder-case is filled with powder, 

 and the thin outer cases squeezed just above the stiff paper, and the 

 end laid down with a slight twist. The bullet is now covered with 

 only one paper, while the powder has three ; the paper over the bullet 

 is lubricated with bees'-wax and tallow, and the cartridge is complete. 

 In using these cartridges, the top being torn off, and the powder 

 poured into the barrel, the cartridge is reversed, and the ball being 

 entered nearly to its head in the barrel, a smart twist tears off the 

 stiff powder-case easily at the place where it joins the thin covering 

 of the bullet, which is then left with its point free, and with a cover 

 of lubricated paper round it. Another method of making cartridges 

 has lately been adopted in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich ; in this 

 process the whole cartridge is made in one bag. A series of hollow 

 mandrills, with small holes all over their surface, are fixed into, and 

 the hollows communicate with, a circular tube, from which the air is 

 exhausted by a steam-engine. Over these mandrills canvas bags are 

 placed, and the circular tube is lowered into a bath of paper pulp, so as 

 just to cover the mandrills which project downwards. The air being 

 then exhausted, the water of the pulp is drawn through the canvas 

 and holes in the mandrill, and leaves a certain amount of pulp adhering 

 to the canvas bag ; the part to contain the powder being made 

 thicker by larger holes in the mandrills at that place than where the 

 bullet comes. The circular pipe with the mandrills being then 

 removed, is fixed to a steam pipe, and hot steam passed back through 

 the canvas bags, which drying the pulp, the paper bags are easily 

 removed. 



CARTS AND WAGGONS. The drag-cart without wheels, which 

 is used in some mountainous districts, is one of the simplest con- 

 trivances for transporting heavy weights. It consists of two strong 

 poles, from twelve to fifteen feet long, connected by cross pieces fixed 

 at right angles to them, by morticing or pinning, so that the poles 

 may be two or three feet apart. About eighteen inches of the poles 

 project beyond the lowest cross piece, the ends resting on the ground. 

 The other ends of the poles form the shafts for the horse to draw by. 

 The load is placed on the cross pieces, over which boards are some- 

 times nailed, for the purpose of carrying stones, or such things as 

 might fall through between the cross bars : it then resembles the 

 body of a cart taken off the wheels. The horse bears one end of the 

 drag-cart by a strap over his back, and draws it by means of a common 

 cart-collar or breast-strap. This vehicle is extremely useful in steep 

 and rough descents, especially to draw stones from quarries, and can 

 be made of rough poles at little or no expense. Pieces of hard wood 

 fixed under the ends of the poles, and renewed as they wear out, will 

 prevent the ends of the drag-cart from wearing away, and will allow it 

 to slide along more easily. 



The Irish car (f<j. 2) may be considered as the next step towards a 

 better construction. This car consists of a bed or platform and two 

 shafts. The wheels, in the simplest form, are round discs of wood made 

 by nailing planks to a thickness of two or three inches over each other, 

 so that the fibres of the wood in one plank shall lie at right angles to 

 those in the other ; they are then sawn into the form of a circle, and 

 an iron tire put on the circumference. Two of these discs are fixed 

 on a square axle of wood at the distance of three or four feet from 

 each other. The ends of the axle, which project three or four inches 

 beyond the wheels, are then rounded in the form of cylinders of two 

 or three inches diameter. To the under part of the bed of the cart 

 two blocks of wood are fixed, which raise it so that the wheels may go 

 under the cart, and in these blocks are two round holes to admit the 

 ends of the axle. Two strong nails or iron pins driven obliquely into 

 the blocks after the wheels are put under, serve to prevent the axle 

 from slipping out. A little grease on the ends of the axle diminishes 

 the friction, and prevents the disagreeable grating of the wood when 

 the wheels turn round. This is the simple old Irish car. The only 

 difference in the construction of the most improved modern cars is 

 the substitution of neat wheels, and iron axles for those described 

 above, and a railing or box fixed on the platform. The great sim- 

 plicity of the Irish car, its easy construction, and the convenience of 

 the platform to place the load on, are its greatest recommendations. 

 It is well adapted to narrow mountainous roads; and the wheels 

 being quite under the bed, there is less danger when two carts meet, 



