ih 
O. N. Rood an Elongated Projectiles. 17 
Art. IIl.—Experiments on the forms of Elongated Projectiles; by 
OaDEN N. Roop, Prof. of Chemistry in the Troy University. 
1€ Inquirer in this deariment Tse with very general an- 
swers, and is too often told in substance, that the accuracy of per- 
formance is directly proportional to the excellence of the ball’s 
model ; it being in the meanwhile by no means particularly ap- 
parent in what such excellence consists. 
n explanation is found in the fact, that there is perhaps no 
other field of investigation, in which so great a number of ex- 
periments is esseutial to the establishment of single and even 
isolated facts—wind and weather, slight changes of temperature 
in the tools employed, or in the form and fit of the projectiles, 
as well as other and more obscure causes, all largely influencing 
the results, contribute and combine vastly to complicate what at 
rst glance might seem a moderately simple problem. 
A series of experiments lately instituted by me, had for their 
object the examination of a few of the more obvious considera- 
tions relative to the accurate flight of elongated projectiles, such 
as length, the form of the base, and other points. 
he rifles emploved, were, with the exception of No. 5, made 
by Nelson Lewis, of 'lrov, N, Y., and were of the model some- 
bidlind called “Kentucky,” or more properly, “Improved Amer- 
lean, 
tica, N. Y., and 
ance at 220 yds, he concludes: ‘The whole of the ten shots 
Would have gone into a small sized playing-card. A feat of this 
kind is probably unparalleled in Great Britain, and it may draw 
, * For some account of these rifles see an excellent article published in the At- 
' ‘antic Monthly for October, 1859. : 
SECOND SERIES, Vor. XXX, No. 83.—JULY, 1860 
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