Gun- 
Gunnery. 
History. 
Colladv’s 
experi- 
ments. 
562 
straight stocked match-lock being placed under the 
right arm, the crooked short hagbut and the. poitrinal 
on the breast, and the modern musket at, the right 
shoulder. Guns of sport, till within these thirty years, 
were made very crooked in the stock, and no regard 
was then paid to the balance of the piece; since that 
period straight stocks have been universally adopted, and 
tlie length of the stock has been accommodated to thesta- 
ture of the person for whom it is made. For a view of va- 
rious constructionsof small arms, see Plate CCLXXXV. 
GUNNERY,” 2 Suianet is 
Ts the art of constructing and using great guns, for” 
the purpose of hitting a distant object, with shot or 
shells, discharged from the gun by the explosive force 
of gunpowder. 
In the present article we propose to confine ourselves 
to the theory of gunnery,as founded on the mathematical 
doctrine of projectiles, corrected and modified by ex- 
perimental investigations. The art of constructing 
and mounting great guns, and the description of the 
apparatus connected with them, will form a separate 
article under the head of OrpNaNcE. 
HISTORY. * 
Tue Italians seem to. have been the first people that 
directed their attention to the subject of the motion of 
cannon shot. Nicholas Tartaglia, a Venetian, who was 
born at Brescia, published at Venice, in 1537, his 
Nuova Scienza, and in 1546 his Quesiti e Invenzioni di« 
verse, in both of which he treats the subject of projec- 
tiles, 
of the calibre rod, or artillery measuring rod, of which 
he seems to have been the inventor. In another work, 
translated into English by Cyprian Lucas, and entitled 
Colloquies concerning the Art of Shooting in Great and 
Small Pieces of Artillery, Lond. 1588, he has entered 
more minutely into the subject. Having no knowledge 
of the practical part of artillery, Tartaglia investigated 
the subject theoretically upon fallacious principles, and 
can scarcely be considered as having done any great ser« 
vice to this branch of science. He is supposed, however, 
to have discovered that projectiles may be thrown to 
the greatest distance when they are projected at an angle 
of 45 degrees ; and, in opposition to the notion of prac- 
tical gunners, he maintained that no part of the path of 
a cannon ball was a straight line, but that it was like the 
surface of the sea, which, though to all appearance a 
plane, was nevertheless a portion of a circle described 
by the radius of the earth. Tartaglia appears. also to 
have been the inventor of the gunner’s quadrant. 
The researches of Tartaglia, imperfect and unsatis« 
factory as they were, had the merit of directing the at- 
tention both of military engineers and mathematicians 
to this curious subject. Many fallacious theories of the 
motions of cannon shot were brought forward, and 
Ufano, Galeus, Ulrick, and several other writers, pub- 
lished tables of the comparative ranges of military pro- 
jectiles, that were quite irreconcileable with experi- 
ment. 
The. first experimental examination of this subject 
was made by M. Collado, a Spaniard, who served as an 
engineer with the Spanish army in Italy. In his work 
entitled Practica Manuale de Artiglieria, Venice, 1586, 
In the last of these works, he gives an account - 
GUNMAKING. 
Fig. 5. Boprecents the Indian match-lock, where M 
is the match held in a tube or pair of pincers, and P. 
the pan, which holds the priming. mt 
quebuss. ae Soy 
Fig. 7. Represents the Rest for the matchlock.. » — 
Fig. 8. Represents the wheel-lock, 
Fig. 9. Represents a modern fowling-piece.  . 
Fig. 10, resents a modern Spanish lock. 
| 
Fig. 6. Represents the European matchlock,. or har« Puare 
which was first published in Italian and afterwards in 4; 
Spanish, he has given for each. point of the gunner’s 
quadrant the ranges of a falconet which carries a three 
pound shot. Mr Robins remarks, that it is manifest, 
trom the number, that the falconet was not loaded with 
the usual quantity of powder. The following are Col- 
lado’s results : e ; 
ments, 
Points of the Angle of Range in paces, 
Gunner’s Quadrant. Elevation. or comimon steps. 
Orr weet 0° point blank . . 268 
MOAN etic 
SU eae | ater ier em Mg | 
Sayin. ar, Trager Se O rs Oe 
No D4 SORTS OS EOLA ra ae 
BO EE STAT Ss « + 1040_ 
GR BIL RINT Teo hee oe 
7. . « . 524 between the $d and 4th range, 
8 . «+ 60 between the 2d and 3d range, 
9 . . « » 67} between the Ist and 2d range, — 
10 . . . «75 between the 0 and Ist range. — 
2S a ack . 824 theball fell very near thepiece. — 
The next experiments which were made on this sub- 
ject, appeared in the. Art of Shooting in Great Ord~, 
nance, a work which was published r 
William Bourne. He assumes unity as the range for 
a point blank shot, and ascertains the ratio of the ranges 
at different elevations. Bourne does not mention the 
nature of the piece which he used, but Mr Robins pre-. 
sumes that it must have beenasmall one. The follow- 
ing Table contains the results given in Chap, vii. of 
the above work : : 
Angles of Elevation, Ranges. 
SAY. coven ans 1.000 
MN Pa BARNS RA 
10, SO ae Be Bebe 
Da a we « . 4.366 
20 .' 2) 4,833 
Greatest range when a strong wind fayours the: 
$6.7. motion of the projectile. 
42 Greatest range ina calm day. 
4g § Greatest range when a. strong wind opposes 
the motion of the projectile. — 
A very admirable series of experiments were made 
carly in the 17th century, by our countryman Eldred, 
who was for many years master gunner at Dover cas- ent 
tle. His earliest experiments are dated 1611; but the 
book which contains them, entitled The Gunner's 
Glasse, was not published till 1646. His experiments, 
which are very numerous, were made with great care, 
Bourne's 
ex 
in 1643 by Mr ™ch 
and the principles on which he proceeded were simple 
* An account ef the invention and history of ARTILLERY will be found under that articles,” sty 
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