THE GUN, AND HOW TO USE IT. 115 



without continuous firing. For these are of admitted ex- 

 cellence. 



For sporting purposes, though the rapidity and number 

 of its discharges are all-sufficient, the difficulty of loading, 

 the want of sufficient calibre, and the consequent failure 

 at long ranges, are conclusive against it. 



Moreover, it is clumsy in the hand, and singularly un- 

 sightly nor are these slight or trivial objections ; for of 

 two guns, the one symmetrical and the other the reverse, 

 the former must needs, cceteris paribus, shoot the better ; 

 as being the more handy and manageable in taking aim. 

 Porter's rifle has a perpendicularly revolving cylinder, 

 loading on the outer edge ; and if any flaw should occur in 

 the metal, causing an internal communication between the 

 chambers, so that a discharge should ensue, four or five 

 of the balls would take effect on the person of the firer, 

 and the whole fabric would be burst and blown to atoms. 



Add to this, it has all the faults ascribable to Colt's 

 arm, with this in addition to them : that aim is taken 

 not along the barrel, or over the axis of the ball, but 

 along a sort of outrigger, divergent at the base and con- 

 vergent toward the muzzle of the piece. By an arrange- 

 ment of screws, it can be so adapted, that these two con- 

 vergent lines, the one made by the sight of the shooter and 

 the other by the flight of the ball, shall meet at any given 

 distance ; beyond which they will necessarily intersect. 

 But, when once regulated for one distance, if fired at an 

 object much nearer, the lines will not meet by some inches 

 or feet ; at one much farther, the lines will cross, with the 

 same effect of missing the object, however true the aim. 



