114 Guns and Projectiles. 



certainly not the case, for while a trained archer was nearly- 

 certain to hit a man at 150 or 200 yards, and good shots could 

 accomplish the same feat at double those distances, our soldiers 

 when armed with the old Brown Bess were equally sure of 

 missing any object that a street urchin could not easily hit 

 with a stone. The bow and arrow must, however, have been a 

 most inconvenient arm in actual war. Unless well made and 

 taken care of, the arrows could not be depended upon. The 

 bow was easily damaged and its string much affected by the 

 weather. Moreover, the arrows were a bulky form of ammuni- 

 tion. Sixty cloth-yard shafts would make an awkward load, 

 while the same number of the old fashioned cartridges could 

 be easily carried in a small pouch, and were much more easily 

 kept in good condition. The introduction of the bayonet also 

 gave the musket a great advantage over the bow, for while the 

 latter was worse than useless, except for the discharge of its 

 projectiles, the former, when not wanted as a fire-arm, became' 1 

 a formidable pike. 



As a weapon to hit anything with, except by accident, the 

 old musket was one of the worst ever contrived, and the old 

 rifle by which some of its errors were corrected, was not much 

 better beyond a couple of hundred yards. Lest this should 

 seem an exaggeration wo will recite a few of the often quoted 

 facts which Sir J. Emerson Tennent brings once more before 

 the public in his interesting popular work entitled the Story of 

 the Guns* He reminds us that during the Caffre war, 81,011 

 cartridges were fired in one engagement in order to make five- 

 and-twenty of the enemy fall; while, during one of the great 

 battles of the French war, a volley fired at thirty paces only 

 brought down three men out of a squadron of cavalry 

 charging a square. Trials made in 1838 showed that a target 

 three feet wide, and nearly twelve feet high, was missed by 

 one quarter of the balls at 150 yards, and at 250 yards not a 

 single ball out of ten hit it when its width was increased to 

 six feet. 



The conditions necessary for missing the object shot at, were 

 tli us admirably fulfilled, and wo may learn something by ascer- 

 taining what they were. In the first place the projectile was a 

 round ball, fitting the barrel loosely and jammed in with a 

 paper cartridge. After tho explosion of the powder it would 

 Iniiii]) up and down, or from right to left in the barrel, and 

 rotate besides. When it left the muzzle no one could guess 

 whether tho deviation from the true course would take it too 

 high or too low, too much on one side or too much on the 

 oilier. In addition to this unknown and unknowable amount 



* Tlie Hlory of the Guns, by Sir J. Emerson Tennent, K.C.S., LL.D., 

 F.R.S., etc. Longmans. 



