59 
It is to be hoped, however, that all the ingenuity that 
has been expended will not have been thrown away and 
that some improvement may result from the pointing out of 
such numerous defects. That in some respects, such as the 
increasing twist and the sudden steps or shoulders on the 
outside of the gun, the present system is defective is shown 
quite apart from the recent accident; and although it now 
appears that the moving forward of the shot as the rammer 
was withdrawn had probably nothing to do with this acci- 
dent, it cannot be considered satisfactory that this moving 
forward should be so much the rule as it is shown to have 
been in the experiments recently undertaken. 
Although at first sight it may appear that the fact of the 
gun having been loaded with two charges of powder and 
two shot is amply sufficient to explain the bursting, it 
may not be useless to examine somewhat closely into what 
would result under such circumstances. The bursting of a 
38-ton wrought-iron gun is an experiment of which we 
should make the most, as we cannot expect to have it often 
repeated. 
From the first accounts of the accident it appeared as 
though the gun had simply broken in two, like a carrot, at 
the first step, and that the front half had gone into the sea. 
Such a failure would not have implied an excess of pressure. 
It might have been caused by a great end strain, such as 
would have resulted had the shot jammed when in full 
career and carried away the fore part of the gun, or it might 
have resulted from the gradual weakening of the section of 
the gun at the shoulder owing to the different degrees of 
expansion immediately before and immediately behind. 
One or other of these causes appeared to afford the most 
probable explanation of the phenomena as described in the 
