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these experiments to say a few words as to the origin and 
meaning of the term “ casemate,” and to give an account of 
General Totten’s previous labors in connection with the 
“casemate embrasure.” The word is fiom the Spanish 
casa-mata (a compound, most likely, of casa, house, and, 
matar, to kill; though it is said also to mean a low or hidden 
house ; but the etymology is not settled), and seems to have 
been used to signify a countermine as well as a concealed 
place, arranged in connection with a fortification, for contain- 
ing and using a piece of artillery. According to Bardin 
it appears to have been applied to the double or triple tier 
of uncovered gun platforms used by the early Ttalian and 
Ge 
vaulted galleries along the scarp wall. The term finally 
came to mean, in fortification, any vaulted room under the 
earth work of the rampart or glacis, whether intended for 
service of guns or for quarters of troops or for containing 
stores. A gun casemate is such a vault abutting against = 
scarp or counterscarp wall through which an “ embrasure ” 
is pierced to permit the discharge of the gun; and in the 
naval service the term has been adopted to signify the part 
of an iron-clad vessel containing the guns, and which is, for 
that reason, especially protected by the iron-plating. Hence 
the essential notion of the word seems to involve one oF 
more of the attributes of concealment, shelter, and destruc- 
tive purpose. 
The use of the casemate, in some of its forms, for flank- 
ing purposes goes back to Albert Durer and San Micheli, in 
the early part of the sixteenth century, and it was resorted t 
by Vauban in his second and third systems, of which the 
tower-bastions are casemated throughout. But it was Te 
served for the Marquis de Montalembert, in the latter pat 
* Dictionnaire de Armée de Terre, &c. 
