A SHORT ACCOUNT 



OF SOME 



EXPERIMENTS MADE WITH CANNON, 



AND ALSO OF 



SOME ATTEMPTS TO IMPROVE FIELD 

 ARTILLERY. 



|URING my residence in Bavaria, I had an op- 

 portunity of verifying, upon a large scale, the 

 method proposed in my first Paper on Gunpowder, 

 for measuring the velocities of bullets by the recoil of 

 the gun, and I had also opportunities of making sev- 

 eral other interesting experiments connected with that 

 subject. In the spring of the year 179 1, a large build- 

 ing was erected for the express purpose of pursuing 

 these investigations, in the neighbourhood of Munich, 

 on the ground destined for the exercise of the artillery, 

 where a most complete apparatus was put up for measur- 

 ing the velocities of cannon bullets by the recoil of the 

 gun, and also by the pendulum at the same time ; and 

 with this apparatus a great number of interesting ex- 

 periments were made under my direction, and most of 

 them in my presence. I should long ago have laid an 

 account of them before the public had I not been in- 

 duced to postpone their publication by a desire that they 

 might make a part of a work on artillery, yet unfinished, 

 but which I hope, at some future period, to be able to 

 send to the press. 



In this work I shall give a detailed account, illus- 



