NATURE 



57 



THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1877 



SCIENCE AND WAR 

 II. 



AT no other time has there been so much want of 

 unanimity among the Great Powers of Europe on 

 the subject of Ordnance. There are 'to be found at the 

 present moment cannon of a dozen different descriptions 

 in the gun parks of European nations, differing from each 

 other not only in respect to their construction, but in the 

 metal of which they are made. So far as small arms are 

 concerned, we know there is but one opinion ; some 

 nations prefer one breech-loader to another, but all agree 

 in the employment of breech-loaders. In the case of 

 cannon, however, it is different. Germany relies upon 

 breech-loading ordnance, while Great Britain has for- 

 saken the system and gone back to muzzle-loaders ; 

 Austria makes her guns of bronze, Germany of steel, 

 Russia favours steel and brass, America cast iron, while 

 England has cannon of steel encompassed with iron, and 

 France weapons of iron girt with steel. 



The balance of favour is beyond question with the 

 breech-loader at the present moment. All the new artil. 

 Icry of the Russians and the Turks is of this kind, while 

 the field-guns both of the Germans and Austrians are 

 upon the same system. France has done nothing lately 

 for the regeneration of its ordnance, and there remains 

 but Great Britain and Italy to represent muzzle-loading 

 artillery. But Italy, although she has adopted the British 

 system for very heavy guns, is by no means a confirmed 

 believer in it, and will doubtless hesitate before following 

 our example very far, beset, as she is, with neighbours 

 armed with breech-loaders. 



Of all the Powers, it is, curiously enough, steady-going 

 Austria, which has taken the boldest and most independent 

 course in the matter of artillery. It was but at the end of 

 I S75 that the Austrian War Office decided to adopt the 

 Uchatius cannon for field artillery, and yet at this moment 

 every artillery regiment of the vast Austro-Hungarian army 

 is armed with the new weapon. Within eighteen months 

 no less than 2,000 of these cannon have been cast and 

 finished, and now the Vienna arsenal is engaged in the 

 manufacture of heavy guns of the same character. Never 

 was a more energetic step taken. A new cannon of some 

 sort was held to be absolutely necessary to uphold the 

 prestige of the army, and a Commission having been in- 

 trusted with the selection of an arm, pronounced without 

 delay in favour of the scheme brought forward by Gen. 

 von Uchatius. In October, 1874, the first round was 

 fired from an Uchatius gun, and a twelvemonth afterwards 

 the sweeping reform which was to introduce an entirely 

 new artillery throughout the Austrian service was de- 

 cided upon. Government sanctioned an expenditure of 

 1,800,000/. to be spent in two years, and Gen. von 

 Uchatius was directed to give all the assistance in his 

 power towards the fulfilment of the design. 



The Uchatius gun is made of so-called steel-bronze. 

 Chilled bronze would be a better name, since Uchatius 

 casts his metal in a chilled, or metal mould, in the 

 same manner, pretty well, as Sir William PaUiser pro- 

 duces his famous cU.lled projectiles. Bronze, as every- 

 VoL. XVI. — No, 395 



body knows, has been a favourite metal with gun-founders 

 from the earliest days, and in the East, especially, magni- 

 ficent castings of this nature have been produced. About 

 90 per cent, of copper and 10 of tin is the mixture com- 

 monly employed in making ordinary bronze, but 8 per 

 cent, of tin is the proportion preferred by Uchatius. The 

 difficulty in casting bronze, as those who have any experi- 

 ence know full well, is that of securing homogeneity, soft 

 particles of tin becoming isolated in the mass, and giving 

 rise to the defect known as " tin-pitting." Whether we 

 have lost the secret of bronze-casting, or whether in 

 former times they were more skilful at the work, certain it 

 is that founders of the present day are unable to secure 

 so uniform an alloy as formerly. This was very apparent 

 when some eight or ten years ago our own Government 

 adopted, for a brief time, bronze artillery. The addition 

 of a small percentage of phosphorus did not mend matters, 

 and the highest authorities on the subject were at a loss 

 to suggest an effective remedy. Our bronze guns, too, had 

 another defect which could not be overcome. After 

 firing the bore became affected, and the weapon, as it was 

 termed, "drooped at the muzzle." These were the two 

 defects indeed that led mainly to the abandonment of the 

 bronze gun in this country, and they are, too, the diffi- 

 culties which Gen, von Uchatius appears to have over- 

 come. He has got rid of "tin-pitting" and his guns do 

 not " droop at the muzzle." 



Uchatius found that by subjecting the alloy in a liquid 

 form to considerable pressure, he was enabled to secure 

 a perfectly homogeneous mass, a result which was also 

 furnished, he discovered when he had gone a step farther, 

 if the molten metal was rapidly cooled. Steel-bronze is 

 apparently made much in the same way as the toughened 

 glass, of which we have heard so much lately. After 

 being cast in a mould, the alloy is thrust into a reservoir 

 of oil, heated to a high temperature, so that the metal 

 suddenly cools, but only down to a certain point. Then 

 the casting is withdrawn and allowed to get cold more 

 gradually. A regular and crystalline structure is in this 

 way produced, which has none of the defects of ordinary 

 bronze. It is a moot point whether phosphorus enters 

 into the composition at all. Chemists tell us they can 

 find no trace of it, but this is no absolute proof that a 

 small percentage of the element was not originally con- 

 tained in the alloy, being burnt out after it had done its 

 work of harmonising the two metals. The inventor is 

 rather reticent on the point, but in any case, it is very 

 certain that he produces a uniform and homogeneous alloy 

 of a hard crystalline nature. 



One other expedient Uchatius has recourse to in making 

 his cannon. When he has cast his gun and chilled it, he 

 proceeds to dilate the bore. Wedges of steel, shaped in 

 the form of cones are forced into the tube of the gun 

 one after another, until the calibre of the weapon has been 

 increased by something like seven or eight per cent. This 

 expansion or dilation of the tube has not only the effect of 

 hardening or steeling the core, but also of rendering the gun 

 more elastic and capable of resisting more effectually the 

 strain put upon it at the moment of firing. The gun, after 

 this process, is in a state of elastic tension, and it is said 

 that there is a pressure from without, inwards, equal to 

 that which was exerted to dilate the gun in the first 

 instance ; and that this is actually the case can scarcely 



