62 DETONATING SYSTEM. 



the flint has the decided advantage ; and, moreover, the 

 sudden, and additional, recoil of a detonater, with the 

 full charge of a duck-gun, is apt, if the shooter be not 

 careful, to strike the hand back, and give him a severe 

 blow on the nose. 



" A detonater that does not light at the side, how- 

 ever, is, he thinks, quite" (I should now, by further ex- 

 perience, rather say " almost") " equal in power to the 

 flint ; but one that does, he should be induced, at a 

 rough calculation, to consider one-fifth inferior; con- 

 sequently he prefers the guns with breechings made 

 expressly for caps, to those fired with tubes, or any 

 other primers, at a side touchhole ; and if this plan 

 was adopted, perhaps the flint might be altogether 

 dispensed with even in duck-guns : besides, this in- 

 vention is more simple, more water-proof, and admits 

 of the gravitating stops. A detonating gun, to be suf- 

 ficiently independent of the muriatic acid which is pro- 

 duced by the ^composition, or detonation of the ful- 

 minating powder, should have no springs, or moveable 

 bodies outside the lock-plate ', that are dependent on 

 cleanliness ; and, in short, a detonating gun can never 

 be so near perfection as when it has no springs what- 

 ever, except the main-spring and scear-spring, which, 

 on the principle last mentioned, being well protected 

 inside of the lock-plate, and free from the smoke that is 

 apt to be driven, even there, by all side communications, 

 no part of the machinery is here dependent in its action 

 on being kept clean from the foulness and rust which is 

 always occasioned by the oxygen gas." (As a more 

 effectual remedy against this, the " back-action" locks are 

 now getting somewhat in vogue. Joe says he discarded 

 them long ago. They may do very well for a hack- 



