»94 



NA TURE 



IJuly 29, 1S80 



hands of the War Department is to be plainly seen in 

 the collections of what are merely regarded as useless 

 eccentricities at Woolwich and Shoebun-ness, but it is 

 very improbable that most of the lessons to be learnt 

 from these have ever been appreciated by those who were 

 responsible for their rejection. Has it not taken twenty 

 \-ears for the system invented by Robert Mallet of build- 

 ing up a massive piece of ordnance capable of being taken 

 to pieces to facilitate transport, to at length bring forth 

 the present seven-pounder screw gun, which can be carried 

 in halves on the backs of mules ? It would be interestinc^ 

 to know whether any private firm in this country, if they 

 had received the order, could have manufactured and 

 proved a train of siege guns on similar principles, and 

 capable of as easy transport as the modern field gun, and 

 which would have considerably facilitated Gen. Stewart's 

 advance to Cabul. 



It can of course be urged with some show of reason 

 that, considering the enormous supply of most patterns of 

 guns and the vast quantity of ammunition required 

 throughout the Empire, great inconvenience would result 

 from too great a multiplicity of designs ; but to con- 

 tinue the manufacture of an inferior pattern for this reason 

 when a better one is procurable appears to us only to 

 make the evil greater when the former has to be finally 

 abandoned as obsolete. Thus we suppose it must have 

 been obvious to a great many persons for the last five 

 years that the days of heavy muzzle-loading guns for the 

 navy were numbered, from the difficulty or impossibility 

 of giving sufficient length of bore for the consumption of 

 large charges of powder while still enabling the gun to be 

 rought in a turret. All possible ingenuity was then ex- 

 pended on shortening the recoil and on mechanical 

 systems of loading in a confined space, with results 

 that might have been incalculably disastrous had this 

 country been involved in war previous to the terrible 

 accident on board the Thundercy; all this too while 

 we believe a suitable pattern of breech-loader was in 

 the hands of a private firm and had been tendered 

 by them for adoption by the War Department. If 

 It could be shown that a Government factory could 

 alone turn out guns of the best manufacture, superior to 

 anything that could be produced by private establish- 

 ments, the logical sequence would be that armour plates 

 and marine engines and the ships themselves should all 

 be provided in the same way. 



The effect of a Government monopoly on the foreign 

 trade of a manufacturer is too well known to require 

 demonstration ; but if the encouragement of private 

 establishments for the production of all kinds of arms 

 and warlike stores should result, as it doubtless w^ould, 

 in a larger trade with foreign powers in these manu- 

 factures, while we should profit by their custom in time 

 of peace, they would not only find themselves in the event 

 of war with this country cut off from their supply of fresh 

 arms and ammunition, but the whole of our own increased 

 production would be available for national defence. 



If such an inquiry as is sought for in this petition be 

 instituted by the present Government, conducted not only 

 by officers of the army and navy, but also under indepen- 

 dent scientific advice, we believe that numerous articles 

 of belief and revered principles of construction will be 

 shown to have been long exploded and will have to be 

 at once abandoned. We shall then probably find the 

 Woolwich system of rifling with increasing pitch and 

 studded projectiles giving place to the poly-groove of 

 unifomi pitch with rotation by gas-check which has beeri 

 under consideration for years, and is yet scarcely recog- 

 nised ; we may even take a hint from the Chinese Govern- 

 ment, who, by applying to Sir William Armstrong's firm, 

 have for more than a year been in possession of four more 

 powerful guns than any afloat in our most recent ironclads ; 

 we should perhaps find that a system of breech-loading 

 IS ready for adoption solving most of the difficulties of 



turret and casemate defence, and that a trustworthy 

 type of hammered steel is ready at hand to be substituted 

 for the welded coils of wrought iron at present in use. 



If it should be found that our Government establish- 

 ments have been suffering from a slow process of crystal- 

 lisation, they might be resuscitated by being placed in 

 keen competition with private firms whose very existence 

 depends on their unceasing activity, or at the least it 

 would be ascertained whether in a critical time the 

 country would have to depend entirely on the Royal Gun 

 Factory, or whether some of the old firms who in former 

 years fought so hard for a share in the work have not 

 forgotten their skill. 



LIVING ON WATER 

 TT OW long a man can live on water alone is now the 

 ■*■ ■•■ subject of an experiment in New York. A Dr. 

 Tanner from INIinnesota is devoting himself to this trial. 

 Tanner declares that he can live for forty days without 

 food, and is proving, or trying to prove, the truth of the 

 hypothesis on his own unfortunate person. He is re- 

 ported to have got through twenty-eight days of his 

 endeavour, and still to be alive and comparatively well. 

 On the twentieth day his pulse was 76, his temperature 

 98-405, and his actual weight 132 lbs. On the twenty- 

 eighth day his weight was 130 lbs. He lost 2-\ lbs. in 

 the first nineteen days during which he fasted, and then 

 ceased to waste at the same rate. The latest report we have 

 of him states that he is cheerful, active, and, notwithstand- 

 ing abundant medical opinion to the contrar}-, confident 

 that he should continue to the end of the time named for 

 the experiment. Of food of the solid kind he touches 

 none ; of drink he partakes of water and nothing else; 

 water and air will, he maintains, sustain him, and 

 that notwithstanding exertions from riding and other 

 exercises. Dr. Tanner is not original in this mode of 

 attempt upon his own life. In the Transactions of the 

 Albany Institute for 1S30 Dr. McNaughton reported the 

 history of a man named Reuben Kelsey, who on July 2, 

 iS;9, declined eating altogether, assigning as a reason 

 " that when it was the will of the Almighty that he 

 should eat he would be furnished with an appetite." 

 JilcXaughton's account of this man is singularly inter- 

 esting. We hav2 not room for all the details, but it 

 may be told in brief that Kelsey continued to live for 

 Jifly-ilircc days ; that he went out of doors and walked 

 about during the greater part of the time, and that he was 

 able to sit up in bed until the last day of liis life. During 

 the first three weeks of his abstinence he fell away very 

 fast, but afterwards did not seem to w^aste so sensibly. 

 Towards the close of his days the colour of his flesh was 

 blue, and at last blackish. His skin was cold, and he 

 complained of chilliness. His general appearance was so 

 ghastly that children were afraid of him. Of this he him- 

 self seemed to be aware, for it was not uncommon to 

 observe him covering his face when strangers were passing 

 by. At the time of his death I\Ir. Kelsey was twenty- 

 seven years of age. The writer of this notice once attended 

 a gentleman, who, for a nearly similar reason as that 

 assigned by Mr. Kelsey, abstained from all food, except 

 water, for even a longer period, viz., fifty-five days. In 

 this instance the wasting was most observed in the first 

 three weeks of the fasting. From this it will be gathered 

 that Dr. Tanner may live to the full extent of forty days 

 on water without being suspected of having been the 

 subject of a miracle. It is against the success of his 

 experiment that he should be exposed to an amount of 

 excitement and vexation that must reduce greatly the 

 vital power, but for all that he may possibly survive the 

 ordeal. The grand question is how he will cry back 

 again. The facts of these examples, painful as they are, 

 are not without their use. They indicate that water 

 being admitted into the body, life may go on for periods 



