LONG SHOTS. 237 



bear a sufficient charge, and range seems to be merely 

 a question of the quantity of powder made use of. But 

 in reality the matter is much more complicated. The 

 artillerist has to contrive that the whole of the powder 

 made use of shall be burned before the shot leaves the 

 cannon, and yet that the charge shall not explode so 

 rapidly as to burst the cannon. If he used some forms 

 of powder, very useful for special purposes, half the 

 charge would be blown out without doing its share of 

 work. On the other hand, there are some combustibles 

 as gun-cotton and the nitrates which burn so fast 

 that the gun would be likely to burst before the shot 

 could be expelled. Then, again, the shot must fit so 

 closely that there shall be no windage, and yet not so 

 closely as to resist too much the action of the exploding 

 powder. Again, there is the form of the shot to be 

 considered. A sphere is not the solid which passes 

 most readily through a resisting medium like the air ; 

 and yet, other projectiles, which are best so long as 

 they maintain a certain position, meet with a greater 

 resistance when once they begin to move unsteadily. 

 The conoid used in ordinary rifle practice, for example, 

 passes much more freely through the air, point first, 

 than an ordinary spherical bullet ; but if the point did 

 not travel first, as would happen but for the rifling, or 

 even if the conoidal bullet ' swayed about ' on its 

 course, it would meet with more resistance than a 

 spherical bullet. Hence the question of ' fast or slow 

 rifling ' has to be considered. ' Fast rifling ' gives the 

 greater spin, but causes more resistance in the exit of 



