446 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



occasioned by the sudden accumulation and increased expansion 

 of the elastic fluid behind the object offering the resistance, or rather 

 is the consequence of the sudden check given to its steady exit 

 from the barrel. 



A ball thus impacted in the barrel of a small gun, musket, or 

 rifle, will be most likely to burst the piece, if fired ; such, at least, 

 is the generally-received opinion. 



This belief, however, like many other vulgar errors that have 

 descended by repetition from one to another without any detail of 

 experiments entered into necessary to establish the facts upon a 

 certain and indisputable basis, may not be altogether correct. 



Commodore Stockton, in his paper containing experiments on 

 ordnance instituted by permission of the Navy Department, and 

 lately read before the American Philosophical Society, opposes 

 this long-received doctrine of explosion, and proves very conclu- 

 sively, in some description of large guns at least, that they in- 

 variably burst with a smaller charge when the ball was nearer the 

 powder than when it was at a distance ; and, also, that the burst- 

 ing took place with the shot at the shortest distance from the 

 powder, after sustaining the same charges at a longer distance. 



These experiments and their results certainly go to prove that 

 such is the fact in large guns of equal calibre and size throughout 

 their whole extent ; but they prove nothing, in our judgment, in 

 the case of small fire-arms of unequal strength and weight of 

 metal. 



Commodore Stockton also shows most conclusively that the 

 greatest internal pressure at the moment of the discharge is at 

 that part of the gun occupied by the powder. 



Although the facts elicited from these interesting and highly 

 instructive experiments are very conclusive, so far as they have 

 a bearing on large guns of one hundred pounds' weight or more 

 and of like dimensions throughout their entire length, they do not 

 certainly establish any thing, as before remarked, either pro or con., 

 as to the old theory respecting small fire-arms ; we are conse- 

 quently forced to adhere to the ancient doctrine of explosion, and 



