THE COMPLETE SHOT 



ANCIENT ACTIONS 



BY far the greatest inventions in gunnery have been made 

 by chemists. The cleverness and boldness of many 

 wonderful inventions for loading at the breech all aimed at the 

 well-nigh impossible. The powder was always ignited from 

 without, and had to be either partly or quite loose in order 

 to facilitate ignition by means of external fire. That is what 

 beat the inventors of five centuries, who were for ever trying to 

 find a breech-loader, a revolver, or a magazine weapon. In 

 default of these working satisfactorily, they tried weapons 

 with seven barrels, and others with fewer. But it was all to 

 little purpose; the detonator had not been discovered by the 

 Rev. A. J. Forsyth, and the chemist to the French army of 

 Louis XV. had not then invented fulminate of mercury. Con- 

 sequently a closed-up cartridge containing its own means of 

 ignition was impossible, for although detonating substances 

 were known years before, they were such as did not always wait to 

 be detonated in other words, they were not stable. They were 

 too dangerous for use, but nevertheless the attempts made at 

 breech-loaders, and especially at magazines, were more than 

 equally dangerous. One weapon had eight touch-holes in eight 

 positions in the barrel, which was eight times charged, one load 

 and charge upon top of the next. That nearest the muzzle was 

 fired first (if the weapon was ever fired at all), and so on, down 

 to that nearest the breech. What prevented the first igniting 

 the rest, and sending all off together with a burst weapon, is 

 not known. If they did not go off all together, one would 



