THE president's ADDRESS. 89 



the American civil war has given to it renewed interest. Larger 

 guns have accordingly come into use than were thought desirable 

 formerly; and larger still will probably before long be employed. 

 We hear also of the contending claims of Armstrong guns and 

 Whitworth guns, and of gunpowder and gun cotton. Renewed 

 and extensive experiments have been made under the superinten- 

 dence or with the aid of men of the highest scientific skill in regard 

 to the power of projectiles, on the one hand ; and to n*ew models for 

 ships of war, and new defensive armour for ships, on the other. In 

 regard to defensive armour, the conclusion, on the whole, seems to 

 be, that no ships can be made to carry plates sufficient to withstand 

 the new guns ; and that it would probably be better to have no plates 

 at all. While the smashing power of the new guns is found to 

 be so enormous, these guns at the same time, in regard to range and 

 precision, so far exceed all previous experience that, I observe, one 

 very distinguished officer declared, in reference to them, that there 

 was nothing in the Arabian Nights so wonderful ; while His Eoyal 

 Highness the Commander in Chief affirmed of the Armstrong guns, 

 that they could do anything but speak. 



There is, I think, an impression amongst unscientific men that 

 the idea of substituting the use of guncotton for gunpowder for 

 military purposes has been entirely abandoned. The official reports 

 published in Erance were indeed very unfavourable to it ; but their 

 conclusions have by no means been acquiesced in. The experiments 

 made by the Austrian Government, during a course of twelve years, 

 had given results highly favourable to the use of guncotton, and, at 

 the suggestion of the British Scientific Association, the British Gov- 

 ernment, in July, 1864, appointed a committee to investigate the 

 subject in all its bearings, with General Sabine as President, and' 

 with a membership representing the army, navy and military, as 

 well as civil engineering, and chemical and physical science. 



The experiments which have been made under the auspices of this 

 committee, during the last year, are said to have established (in 

 accordance with the results of the Austrian experiments,) that gun- 

 cotton possesses great superiority over gunpowder in both the sim- 

 plicity and the safety of its manufacture ; and to have indicated 

 that the changes to. which guncotton is liable, under conditions like 

 those under which it would be used or preserved for military pur- 

 poses, are very minute, and such as are not likely to interfere witb 



