

Intonating 



Now that every gunmaker and almost every sports- 

 man is so infatuated with the detonating, or per- 

 cussion, system, I can easily imagine that the whole 

 of this edition, which relates to the flint, will by many 

 be considered an obsolete subject, and therefore an 

 useless insertion. I fancy that I see a fashionable 

 sportsman opening this little work, catching his eye 

 on the word " flint," " pan," or " hammer," throwing 

 down the book, walking out of the shop, and ex- 

 claiming, " a hundred years out of date !" Little 

 aware, however, that for these last seven years I have 

 made, perhaps, more trials of detonaters than any 

 gunmaker in the kingdom ; and were I to print every 

 schedule that was carefully noted down at the time 

 of trial, I might compile a work, which would be 

 formed of pages, more, in appearance, like a book of 

 arithmetic, than a work of sentences. I shall there- 

 fore not trouble my readers with a dry detail of evi- 

 dence, but merely insert one of the schedules, with a 

 copy of an impartial opinion which I sent to Mr. 

 Joseph Manton in 1822; as every subsequent trial, 



