94 POWDER. 



powder should be as duly proportioned to that of the 

 gun, and the long distances for which it is required, as 

 the wadding must be to the size of the caliber. 



As I stated to Messrs. Curtis and Mr. Harvey, I 

 have invariably observed that small-grained powder 

 fails to answer in large guns ; particularly on salt 

 water, and in damp weather. It always shoots weak, 

 beyond fifty or sixty yards, and is very liable to hang 

 fire. If a punt-gun is loaded with fine powder, and 

 brought in at night, the chances are that it would hang 

 fire in the morning. But, with coarse cannon-povtder, 

 I have known a gun that has been loaded a fortnight 

 go off as well as possible, by merely being probed and 

 fresh primed. I may perhaps be asked by some green 

 gunner (such a one, for instance, as would ask a man 

 with a punt, a dog, and mud-boards, how he got the 

 birds after killing them ? !) " Why not fire off the gun 

 and reload it?" To this the answer would be, that 

 the discharge of only the powder would, most probably, 

 clear a small pond, or even harbour, of every bird that 

 was in it ; and therefore be liable to spoil a grand shot, 

 t/wglazed powder is the strongest and quickest. Why 

 they glaze powder at all I am at a loss to know, unless 

 it is to tickle the fancy of the dandies. 



I one day tried a coast-gun with fine powder it shot 

 miserably ; then with large-grained powder (such as Joe 

 used for detonaters) it shot but so so*; and then 

 with unglazed cannon-powder, and it shot admirably. 

 Here is the thing proved at once ! I therefore requested 

 Messrs. Curtis and Mr. Harvey to make me a sample 



* I stated this to be the best of all, when we last went to press ; 

 but I have now to apologise for an error, which I was led into by 

 the bad quality of the cannon-powder against which I tried it. 



