480 



APPARATUS FOR 



only in my power to notice a few of the experiments, 

 in a detached form. 



The first experiments were performed by firing 

 the new composition (using about one grain, or ra- 

 ther less, at each trial,) through a piece of cartridge 

 flannel tied over the hole at the bottom (B) of the 

 apparatus, when it inflamed a quantity of gun- 

 powder fixed in a tin-case below the flannel. This 

 was repeated successively, for many times, without 

 cleaning the apparatus, and the flame never failed 

 to pierce the flannel and fire the gunpowder. 



Should this succeed as regularly when applied to 

 the gun itself, there could remain no doubt but 

 that it would possess all the proposed advantages. 

 There was therefore fixed to a six-pounder an ap- 

 paratus similar to the one described, excepting that 

 it wanted the long tube (A B), for which the pri- 

 ming hole of the gun became a substitute. It was 

 charged with cartridge, and, in several of the trials, 

 with ball and cartridge ; and upon the same ex- 

 periments being repeated with it, it gave the same 

 uniform results. 



The next experiments were with the view of 

 ascertaining how the results stood related to Sir 

 Humphry Davy's theory regarding the impervious 

 nature of wire-gauze to flame. Wire-gauze, of 

 different degrees of fineness, was, in successive 

 trials, put in the interior of the joinings of the 

 tube, (a, b or c) so as to cover the hole completely. 

 When the coarser wire-gauze was employed, the 



