306 THE SPORTING EIFLE. 



surface of the bullet, or by any other accident, the resistance 

 should be stronger on one side of the pole of circular motion 

 than on the other; yet, as the place where this greater 

 resistance acts must perpetually shift its position round the 

 line in which the bullet flies, the deflection which this 

 inequality would occasion, if it acted constantly with the 

 same given tendency, is now continually rectified by the 

 various and contrary tendencies of that disturbing force 

 during the course of one revolution." Tracts, p. 330. 



VELOCITY DIMINISHED BY RIFLING A SMOOTH BORE. 



Such is now the admitted object, of the grooves in the rifle ; 

 and it is unnecessary to support the view taken by Robins 

 and others since his time, by the analogy of the top or the 

 arrow. Whether the latter rotates or not in its flight is 

 perfectly immaterial, for if it does, the motion is communi- 

 cated by the air through which it passes, and not by the bow 

 or the hand before it quits them. A ball from a smooth 

 bore (that is, from a barrel not rifled in any way) will have a 

 greater velocity and range than a similar ball projected from 

 a rifled barrel, on account of the friction caused by the 

 rifling absorbing some portion of the original force of the 

 explosion. Hence, neither increased range, nor its synonym, 

 velocity, is gained by rifling, but only truth or correctness of 

 flight; so that, though the ball does not really go further, it 

 will be of service at a greater range, because it will hit the 

 object at which it is aimed. At the same time, the intro- 

 duction of rifling may be said to increase our range not, it 

 is true, in the use of spherical balls, the flight of which it 

 retards but because from the spinning motion given to it, 

 a more elongated ball may be used than from a smooth bore ; 

 and hence the weight being increased in a greater proportion 

 than the area to which the atmosphere offers resistance in 

 its passage, the flight is greatly extended. In a smooth bore 

 a slightly oval ball can be relied on, if one end is somewhat 

 thicker than the other (or egg-shaped), for that end being 

 heavier will always fly forward ; but a pointed cylinder soon 

 " upsets," as it is termed, and is then at once rendered useless 

 as a projectile. By upsetting is to be understood the turning 



