GUNS AND AMMUNITION 



213 



gun pleased me, so I thought to test the 

 ejector. 



Two empty shells were given me and I 

 put them into the chambers. The gun was 

 snapped and then opened. " Click," went 

 the extractor on the side I had snapped, 

 and the shell flew over my shoulder. The 

 other lock did the same after being 

 snapped, and did it just as soon as the 

 under edge of the barrel came on a line 

 with the top of the frame. The whole ar- 

 rangement looked simple and worked per- 

 fectly. 



Would the ejectors turn? There was no 

 such thing as a stud or an upright sliding 

 in a groove, and the neat little extension 

 rib could not have been made to permit 

 such a thing. Well, I thought there was 

 no use fooling with an ejector which had 

 no bolster or other auxiliary to keep it 

 from turning; but I looked again, and saw 

 a little square bolt working in a square hole 

 in the lug. Eureka! Just what had been 

 wanted. I had faith in the Ithaca ejector 

 from that time, and have never changed 

 my mind. It is an ejector that will eject 

 and can never get lopsided or out of plumb. 



There are other good qualities about the 

 new Ithaca. All told, it is one of the neat- 

 est, most perfect of American guns; but 

 its ejector alone ought to recommend it to 

 the sportsmen who have been dislocating 

 their shoulders trying to open other ejec- 

 tor guns wide enough to allow the shell 

 to fly out. 



Concerning nitro powders, I have only 

 this to say: I have tried them all, from 

 American Wood to Walsrode, and found 

 them all right. I was once an advocate of 

 black powder, muzzle-loading guns and 

 soft shot, and swore by them; but that was 

 before I understood the nature of an oath. 

 I have no use for black powder or soft shot 

 now. The days of the paleozoic ammuni- 

 tion are gone, and it has gone with them. 



T. E. M. 



SMALL BORE RIFLES IN THE WAR. 



Dr. Orlando Ducker, an expert in gun 

 shot wounds, went over the battle field of 

 Cusco Mountain, near Santiago, and ex- 

 amined the bodies of dead and wounded 

 soldiers with a view to determining the ef- 

 fectiveness of modern small bore rifles for 

 military purposes. He says in his report: 



The effectiveness of rifles of small calibre 

 but of great initial velocity, like the Krag- 

 Jorgensen, the Lee-Metford or the Mauser, 

 should be regarded as settled, if we accept 

 the results of the battle of Cusco Mountain, 

 on June 14. One of our soldiers received 

 a flesh wound m the left arm, at a distance 

 of 200 yards. The ball struck just below 

 the elbow as the arm was being extended, 

 semi-flexed. The wound at the entrance 

 was no larger than the bullet, but the exit 

 was a terrible laceration; so great in fact 



that it was supposed until a minute ex- 

 amination had been made that an explosive 

 bullet had been used. 



Of the Spanish soldiers examined one 

 had sustained a comminuted fracture of the 

 fifth and sixth ribs, at the anterior curva- 

 ture. The man was evidently stooping and 

 running when struck by the fatal bullet, 

 the ball entering the back, below the tenth 

 rib, and ranging upward, striking the inner 

 side of the sixth and the outer side of the 

 fifth rib, shattering them for the space of 

 2 inches. The second was a negro Spanish 

 guerilla, with the usual thick negro skull. 

 The wound at entrance was near the mid- 

 dle of the left parietal bone, tearing away 

 the outer table for a quarter of an inch 

 around it, but leaving the inner table in- 

 tact, except a clean-cut hole the size of the 

 bullet. The ball passed out through the 

 right orbit, tearing away half of the floor 

 and all of the inner wall. There was com- 

 plete longtitudinal fracture of the skull, ex- 

 tending from the ciliary ridge of the right 

 side to the occipital suture on the same side, 

 passing one inch above the wound at en- 

 trance. 



The third Spaniard was one of the regu- 

 lars, judging from his uniform, and a man 

 about 25 years old. He was evidently 

 stooping forward and facing our troops, 

 as the ball entered the right frontal bone, 

 2 inches anterior to the parietal suture and 

 2.y 2 inches above the temporal articula- 

 tion, traversing the brain longitudinally, 

 passing out through the right side of the 

 occipital bone on a line of and midway be- 

 tween the mastoid process and the occipital 

 protuberance. The wound at exit was ir- 

 regular in shape, but one by % of an inch 

 in size, damaging alike both the inner and 

 outer table of the skull. 



The wound at entrance was clean cut and 

 the size of the bullet, so far as the inner 

 table was involved; but along the lower 

 margin extended 24 °f an i ncn on either 

 side, and one inch below the entrance the 

 outer table was completely torn away, as 

 though it had been excavated by a chisel. 

 A complete longitudinal fracture extended 

 from the roof of the right orbit through 

 the frontal bone, passing half an inch above 

 the wound at entrance to 2-3 the distance 

 of the right parietal, the other extending 

 downward and outward to the middle and 

 posterior margin of the bone. In both 

 cases of wounds of the skull the longitu- 

 dinal fracture did not communicate with 

 the wound at entrance or exit. In both 

 cases the fracture was parallel to the course 

 of the ball and complete. A thin bladed 

 knife was passed through the fractures. 

 The shooting was from 600 to 800 yards, 

 and the fractures along the line of greates' 

 pressure. 



Whether a ball passing through the head 

 from side to side will cause a fracture at a 

 right angle to the long diameter of the head 



