1 62 Experiments to determine 



it, when fired against it from the distance of six feet, — 

 the same ball, discharged from the same pistol, with the 

 same charge of powder, may be made to pass quite 

 through one deal board, and bury itself in a second 

 placed behind it, merely by preventing the loss of force which 

 arises from what is called windage'; as I have found more 

 than once by actual experiment. 



I have, in my possession, a musket, from which, with 

 a common musket charge of powder, I fire two bullets 

 at once with the same velocity that a single bullet is dis- 

 charged from a musket -on the common construction, 

 with the same quantity of powder. And, what renders 

 the experiment still more striking, — the diameter of 

 the bore of my musket is exactly the same as that of a 

 common musket, except only in that part of it where it 

 joins the chamber, in which part it is just so much con- 

 tracted that the bullet which is next to the powder may 

 stick fast in it. I ought to add that, though the bullets 

 are of the common size, and are consequently consider- 

 ably less in diameter than the bore, means are used 

 which effectually prevent the loss of force by windage ; 

 and to this last circumstance it is doubtless owing, in a 

 great measure, that the charge appears to exert so great 

 a force in propelling the bullets. 



That the conical form of the lower part of the bore, 

 where it unites with the chamber, has a considerable 

 share in producing this extraordinary effect, is however 

 very certain, as I have found by experiments made with 

 a view merely to ascertain that fact. 



I will finish this paper by a computation, which will 

 shew that the force of the elastic fluid generated in the 

 combustion of gunpowder, enormous as it is, may be 

 satisfactorily accounted for upon the supposition that its 



