May 12, 1887] 



NATURE 



35 



in some places iron instead of stone to resist the greater 

 energy of modern projectiles ? Not but that there have 

 been many men both in the Artillery and Engineers who 

 lave seen the unfitness of what we have been doing, and 

 lave energetically protested against it, but they have not 

 lad force enough at the War Office to overcome the 

 nertia due to the complacency derived from, perhaps, just 

 nride in a profound knowledge of books. 



We do not go quite the length of Dr. Tyndall's opinions, 

 hough we admit that there is much truth in them ; we 

 ecognise the difficulty of teaching in advance, if we 

 may use the expression ; but there can be no doubt 

 that precedent and routine have much to answer for, and 

 account for the reluctance of Professors to admit that 

 many of the old methods of fortification and artillery are 

 as dead and useless as the matchlock or the old castle. 

 Besides these considerations derived from experience of 

 the services, we have the fact that most of the original 

 inventions in the construction of guns and carriages have 

 been the work of civil engineers and mechanics, who have 

 been unhampered by precedent and unchecked by 

 authority, and this circumstance must be our apology, as 

 a non-professional paper, for devoting some space to a 

 discussion of the present state of the science of fortifica- 

 tion, especially with regard to our own coast defences. 



It cannot be disputed, in the first place, that the pro- 

 jectiles delivered by modem guns are distinguished by 

 greatly extended range, by much greater accuracy of 

 flight, by immensely greater weight and destructive power, 

 and by increased rapidity and precision of firing ; but on 

 the other hand it must also be admitted that in fighting 

 at long ranges there will be greater waste of ammunition, 

 and that, to put it plainly, excitement and fright go far to 

 neutralise the advantages gained by our improved weapons, 

 and that, consequently, defensive works should be planned 

 so as to give the utmost possible security and sense of 

 safety to the garrison. It is only necessary to study the 

 records of recent naval actions, such as those during the 

 War of Secession in the United States, the bombardment 

 of Alexandria, or fights with dense hordes of savages in the 

 Soudan and elsewhere, to be satisfied of the fact that the 

 amount of destruction caused is small compared with the 

 terrific fire employed. In the case of attack by artillery 

 on shore the results are not so unsatisfactory, the steadi- 

 ness of the platform, the accurately known range, the 

 immovability of the gun and object fired at, the fact that 

 the best and steadiest soldiers can be selected to aim, and 

 that any nervousness in the gunner does not unsteady the 

 gun, makes the fire of field and siege artillery approach 

 much more nearly to what can be attained in times of 

 peace ; but even then, as in the Navy, smartness and 

 rapidity of fire, the descendants of time-honoured drill, 

 aggravated by excitement, are often the cause of a lament- 

 able sacrifice of accuracy. 



To make good shooting it is imperative that the men 

 should be reasonably safe, especially against wholesale 

 slaughter such as is caused by the bursting of a shell in a 

 casemate, and this necessity is all the more imperative at 

 the beginning of a war, when most of the soldiers have as 

 yet never heard the shriek of a shell at their ears, or 

 witnessed its terrifying effects. The shooting should be 

 slow and deliberate in order to be effective, the result of 

 each shot should be ascertained, for it must be remembered 

 that the costly charges now fired are no more effective 

 than those of the old smooth-bore artillery unless they 

 reach their destination. 



Next, the advantage of longrange,accuracy,and rapidity 

 of fire is in a great degree neutralised by the dense 

 volumes of smoke produced by the modern large charges 

 of powder, and although smoke may prove a valuable 

 protection against the accuracy of an enemy's fire, it 

 undoubtedly limits one's own offensive power except under 

 certain conditions to which we will refer again. 



In the last place, it may be conceded that an object 



which you cannot see you cannot aim at ; that to be 

 invisible is better than to be protected by armour, 

 and this desirable condition of safety is easily attained 

 in the case of coast defences against ships, because 

 a ship, being always more or less in motion, even 

 when at anchor, can never mark accurately any object 

 of which it can get only an occasional peep. Thus, 

 at the bombardment of Alexandria, one of the un- 

 doubted advantages on the side of the defenders was that 

 some of their batteries were not to be distinguished from 

 the irregular features of the rocky coast, and their pre- 

 sence could only be detected by the puffs of smoke from 

 their guns. Even the old-established rules relating to 

 fortifications admit the necessity of concealment ; the 

 greatest secrecy is maintained as to the internal economy 

 of forts ; access to them cannot be obtained without great 

 difficulty, although we believe that little or nothing is to be 

 gained by such precautions. What should be concealed is 

 the fort itself, and its construction should be of such a 

 nature that the fire of an enemy could not reach the 

 essential mountings and stores it is intended to protect. 

 Even Nature teaches us a lesson in this respect : animals 

 liable to be the prey of others construct their nests of a 

 form and colour and dispose of them so as to be invisible 

 from a short distance, and even the colour of their plum- 

 age or their fur is made to assimilate to the tints which 

 surround them; and the tactics they employ when in 

 danger are to lie still so as not to attract attention. 



The propositions which we have laid down, and which 

 we do not imagine can be disputed, are of a nature to 

 condemn at once the old systems of fortification, which 

 appear to us to be specially contrived to afford the peculiar 

 advantages which an enemy would desire ; nor are alter- 

 native and more rational methods wanting, for as far back 

 as May 7, 1869. at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 

 a paper, describing a new system of coast fortification 

 calculated to meet the changes in artillery and the modern 

 conditions of naval attack, was read by Colonel Moncriefif. 

 In that paper the principle of concealment was laid down, 

 the manner of carrying out the system explained, and the 

 first workable disappearing gun-carriage, which made 

 the reahsation of the principles enunciated practicable, 

 was described. 



The time for bringing the matter before the public was 

 also opportune, because the loan which had been con- 

 tracted for strengthening the defences of the country had 

 not all been expended, while the advance in the range 

 and power of artillery was beginning to be fully realised. 

 The authorities, however, were blind to the principles 

 involved; they accepted, indeed, the disappearing gun, but 

 they rejected the system of which it was only a detail. 

 It would have been better had they accepted the systern, 

 and rejected the gun-carriage. The consequence of this 

 incredible want of common-sense and discernment has 

 been that a series of misapplications of the methods 

 advocated by Colonel Moncrieff have been perpetrated by 

 the War Office, as, for example, at Milford Haven, 

 Hubberston, Newhaven, Popston, &c. In some of 

 these forts the emplacements for the disappearing guns 

 are actually formed on the top of casemates, crowded 

 into the most conspicuous positions possible. 



Those who have had an opportunity of witnessing the 

 trials of guns and their carriages at the Royal Arsenal, 

 must have been struck with the marvellous resistance 

 which a heap of earth opposes to the proof shots fired 

 into it. An insignificant mound stops the heaviest pro- 

 jectiles fired at a few yards' range from the most powerful 

 guns loaded with proof charges, the mound remains unin- 

 jured, though daily subjected to blows which would soon 

 wreck any structure made of the most solid materials. The 

 Moncrieff system is specially adapted to take advantage 

 of this stubborn resistance of earth, and that circumstance 

 alone should have commended it to the official mind long 

 years ago, especially as, in addition, the necessarily slight 



