101 
were soon shaken to pieces by the blast of the gun. An- 
other one, however, constructed of bricks laid in cement- 
mortar, sustained without injury several hundred discharges. 
These last results have been confirmed wherever there has 
been practice from our embrasures, which, with immaterial 
differences, have since 1815 been constructed in all our 
casemated batteries according to the preceding descrip 
It will be seen from the foregoing quotations how thor- 
oughly General Totten, in adopting the casema ted battery, was 
imbued with the spirit of its illustrious originator. If, as is 
likely, he was aware of the latter’s rules on this subject, he 
was the first to appreciate their essential importance, and to 
prove the practicability of their application. It is probable, 
however, that the close study of the subject, critical obser- 
vation and keen sagacity which so distinguished him on all 
occasions, and which taught him to accept nothing as the 
best which was susceptible of improvement, led him to 
recognize as “murderous funnels” the embrasures of rou- 
tine, —to create anew the rules of Montalembert, and to 
make, for the first time, a successful application of them. 
He reduced the throat to nearly an absolute minimum: he 
placed it at two feet from the outer face of the wall, dimin- 
ishing the external openings from eighteen, twenty-two, and 
twenty-eight, down to about ten square feet, while he in- 
creased the sector of fire of the gun from forty-five to sixty 
degrees ; thus adding one third to its field of fire, and conse- 
quently to its value. 
The embrasures, thus modelled in 1815, remained un- 
changed until the year 1858, but the casemate continued a 
subject of study and experiment during most of his life. 
The perfecting of ventilation, the determination of the di- 
mensions and height of the piers, of the span and rise of 
: Q* : * 
