THE GUN, AND HOW TO USE IT. 121 
from the muzzle with a ramrod; and that, either when 
thus or otherwise loaded, it can be capped by the hand, 
precisely after the manner of any other variety of the 
firelock. 
With the cartridge, hand-capped, it can be fired delib- 
erately five or six times in the minute; and I should think, 
though I have never tried it, three or four times, if not 
more, with loose ammunition. 
If these, however, were the only recommendations of 
this arm, it would have been needless to waste words 
upon it, as applicable to sporting purposes. But it has 
another unrivalled superiority to any fire-arm I have ever 
seen—its range and power of penetration. 
The small-calibre gun, of which I have spoken, does its 
work tellingly and killingly at ranges which used to be 
considered impossible, three and four hundred yards’ dis- 
tance. But the short cavalry carbines of 22 or 24-inch 
barrel carry a round ball of 4 0z. and an acorn-shaped 
one of twice the weight, which does fearful execution at 
500 paces. I have seen a round ball, from one of these 
short pieces, pierce two three-inch wet oak planks, at a 
foot distance asunder, and then bury itself, eight inches 
deep, in the body of a tulip tree. 
The military rifle of the same pattern with a ball of 
about $ oz. round, $ oz. conical, has been proved capable 
of striking the size of a horse at the enormous distance of 
1400 yards, and with a force as fatal as its range and 
accuracy are tremendous. 
Tried before a military board in Canada, against the 
Minie rifle, it beat that queen of weapons, as it has been 
6 
