PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 541 



aptitude for ordnance. The country beiiij^ at peace, lie worked without 

 rivalry, except in an officer sustaining about the same relation to the 

 army. They were each more or less successful, owing- to the g-eneral 

 ignorance on this subject, and at the birth of this rebellion each was the 

 autocrat of ordnance in their respective branches of >the service, and their 

 different systems were covered by patents: the one the Dahlgron navy gun, 

 cast solid in a mass double the weight of the gun, chipped off, and bored 

 out in the lathe; the other the Rodman army gun, cast hollow, and cooled 

 from the center with water. It is doubtful if at this period Europe had so 

 far advanced as we. But they have kept on while we have stood still, 

 utterly, disgracefully still, so far as the departments are concerned. The 

 mechanical talent of the country has had no encouragement. ' 



Private foundries have been employed to make Parrott, Rodman and 

 Dahlgren guns, but not other or better ones. This being the result, the 

 influence of these systems became deepl}' rooted in the minds and interests 

 of those connected with ordnance and the bureau. 



A civilian's opinion. 



9. Robert Mallet in the preface to his great work on ordnance says: 

 "There are those who affirm that all that relates to the fabrication or 

 improvement of artillery belongs properly to the officer of artillery or of 

 engineers, and that he alone is qualified to treat of or to direct such, and to 

 these some apology may seem fitting for meddling with matters deemed so 

 purely professional. To superior knowledge, wherever found, I willingly 

 defer, and recognize the great ability and brilliant attainments of very 

 many within the scientific corps of our army, among whom I reckon some 

 honored frif nds, but I cannot admit the preceding doctrine, nor do I believe 

 it possible that, under the existing conditions of military education and 

 life, or perhaps under any others consistent with its primary necessities, 

 commissioned officers can attain that varied, ccmprehensive, and accurate 

 scientific and practical knowledge, and that educated phj-sical tact which 

 long experience in technical matter alone confers, to the extent that civil 

 life permits, and which the education and occupation of the civil and 

 mechanical engineer create and empower, ^Non omnia possumus omnes.^ 

 Experience proves it to have been of necessity so always and in all 

 countries. Who have been the great improvers, if not the creators of the 

 science of gunnery itself? A long list of illustrious men, in civil life — Tar- 

 taglia, Galileo, Cassini, Marriotte, Hawksbee, Robins, and Hutton, while 

 many of the most important practical details applied to the military art 

 have also come from men such as Forsythe, a country clergyman, the inven- 

 tor of the percussion lock,'' to which we may add the following names of 

 Americans: Sharpe, Coli, Tread well, Dickinson, Hotchkiss, Uoremus, Pro- 

 fessor Barnard, James, &c. 



HISTORICAL. 



10. The first effort at heavy guns were in wrought iron, and they have, 

 from a very early period, been tried in every conceivable shape, but alviys 

 burst. James II, of Scotland, was killed by one of a pair made by in 

 artist of his day, and the other of the pair burst at a later time. A lai -. ■) 

 wrought-iron gun burst on board the Princeton, killing Mr. Upshur, a mem- 



