SLOYD 



5409 



SMALL ARMS 



SLOYD, sloid, a system of handwork origi- 

 nating in Sweden in 1872 and introduced into 

 the United States soon afterwards, where it is 

 taught as manual training (which see). The 

 word sloyd is the English form of the Swedish 

 word slog, meaning skill of hand. 



SLUG, the name of a group of animals be- 

 longing to the Mollusca branch (see MOLLUSKS) 

 and resembling the snails in structure and hab- 

 its. They are slimy-looking creatures, lacking 

 the external shell of the snails, but, like them, 



GIANT YELLOW SLUG 

 About natural size. 



having their eyes borne on tentacles. There are 

 two pairs of these stalks, the eyes being on the 

 tips of the larger ones. While the slug is slowly 

 crawling along it secretes a slimy substance 

 that makes locomotion easier. In the vicinity 

 of New York and Boston there is found a -gar- 

 den slug that feeds especially on greenhouse 

 plants. This is the great gray slug, native to 

 Europe and introduced from there into the 

 United States. These slugs are inclined to seek 

 heaps of refuse and decaying matter, and they 

 can be held in check if such accumulations are 

 kept out of gardens and hothouses. Another 

 species is the giant yellow slug of California. 

 Some florists sprinkle ashes and cinders about 

 plants they wish to protect, as the slug that 

 crawls over these rough, dry objects has to se- 

 crete so much mucus that it dies of exhaustion 

 and suffocation. See SNAIL. 



SMALL ARMS, a term which embraces fire- 

 arms held and fired by hand, as distinguished 

 from artillery and machine guns. Gunpowder 

 soon after its invention was applied to use in 

 cannon, and later to hand arms, the first pat- 

 terns of which, however, were so heavy that 

 two men were required to carry, load and fire 

 a gun. It was slow in firing and pattern after 

 pattern has given place to improvements, until 

 the modem, easily-carried and effective weap- 

 ons have been evolved. 



On the arrival of the early colonists in 

 America they were, of course, provided with 

 weapons of European make. Germany, Swit- 

 zerland and France had made considerable 

 progress in the production of firearms, and im- 

 ported weapons were used in America for many 

 years. Until the period of the Revolutionary 



War, in fact, weapons of old style were still in 

 use, for the training of the early colonists had 

 taught them to condemn the use of firearms 

 except to obtain food or for purposes of self- 

 defense, and they had remained satisfied with 

 their primitive weapons. 



The first rifles produced in America were 

 cumbersome weapons of German pattern, with 

 deeply rifled barrels, which were so hard to 

 load that the bullet had to be driven in with a 

 mallet. They were far more accurate in shoot- 

 ing, however, than those previously in use. 

 The total weight of these rifles was about ten 

 pounds, and the barrel measured forty to forty- 

 five inches. In the western sections a rifle spe- 

 cially adapted to buffalo hunting was used, the 

 barrel measuring thirty-four inches, firing 

 ninety grains of powder and having a bore of 

 over one-half inch. The rifle most suited to 

 early use in the United States was found to be 

 one of small bore, especially for shooting squir- 

 rels, turkeys and small game of that section. 

 The bullets used were small, about seventy or 

 eighty weighing a pound. 



During the War of Secession about 7,000,000 

 rifles of different kinds were used by the con- 

 tending armies, some imported, some made in 

 arsenals already established in America. The 

 first breech-loading rifle to be made by the 

 government was the Hall rifle issued in 1818, 

 though muzzle-loading muskets were used till 

 some years later. After the War of Secession 

 muzzle-loaders were transformed into breech- 

 loaders. The introduction of center-fire car-: 

 tridges, a great improvement on the old pow- 

 der-and-ball charge, led to a great advance in 

 the production of firearms. The breech-load- 

 ers, converted on plans suggested by a me- 

 chanic at the Springfield (Mass.) armory, fired 

 a cartridge of .58 caliber, a brass shell contain- 

 ing seventy grains of powder and 450 grains of 

 lead. The caliber of the rifle named the 

 Springfield was reduced in 1873 to .45, with 

 seventy grains of powder and 405 grains of lead. 



The introduction of smokeless powder led to 

 still further improvements. The advantages of 

 the new explosive were obvious. Vast quanti- 

 ties of smokeless ammunition were made dur- 

 ing the Spanish-American War for use in the 

 Springfield rifle of .45 caliber. The caliber was 

 further reduced when the Krag-Jorgensen rifle 

 was adopted in 1892, with. .30 caliber. The 

 Springfield rifle of later pattern (1900) also has 

 a caliber of .30, is fitted with a magazine, and 

 in the hands of an expert is capable of firing 

 twenty shots in 28% seconds. 



