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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
able propensity to fly about, and tbe exact injury from concussion in cupolas 
where a heavy shot hits fair, is still a matter of dispute. 
None of these conditions affect the gunners in the present case, occupying 
as they do the defiladed space in rear of a high interior slope, and with all 
the advantages of mantelets but in a higher degree. 
The sixth or last head, viz. “ Masking 33 is one which perhaps is not 
likely to be appreciated at first sight. No doubt it is an advantage which 
has not hitherto been enjoyed after guns had once opened fire; and therefore 
experience does not directly bear on it. I trust, however, that practical 
officers will agree that the proposed system possesses no small advantage in 
this respect over present ones, where guns are either in embrasures, in 
casemates, or en barbette . It would be rather difficult I conceive to open 
a correctly directed fire on a line of batteries which presented nothing to the 
eye, and which had not a mark of any kind to guide the aim. 
If the ground were judiciously chosen for such batteries, it would be very 
difficult indeed to determine the exact position of the guns, and very 
unsatisfactory work to direct a fire on them. 
I cannot illustrate this better than by begging my readers to recollect the 
case of the Mamelon at Sebastopol, which fell by assault after its batteries 
had been silenced. I watched very carefully the sort of fire, which 
gun by gun shut up this work until there was only one left to answer the 
bombardment, and feel justified in saying that had it not been for the 
embrasures, all the artillery we had in position on the allied front would 
not have produced the same result in the same time ; and from the way the 
Trench fell back after their first attempt, I am convinced the assault would 
have failed without regular approaches had there been a few guns to sweep 
the glacis. 
As another illustration. Suppose the entrance to a harbour, the mouth 
of a river near a large town, or other narrow waters had to be defended 
against ships. If a few powerful guns w r ere judiciously placed in 
“MoncriefF” batteries, connected and supported by trenches for infantry, 
could anything more embarrassing be imagined for ships, than to receive a 
deadly fire from the most peaceful looking hillocks, and when they looked 
for their enemy, to see no mark of his position except a cloud of white 
smoke passing gently to leeward, until their attention was distracted by the 
same phenomenon in some other unexpected quarter ? 
In connexion with this subject I beg also to direct attention to a proposal 
which becomes possible, viz. that of using transparent screens. 
These screens w r ould be painted the colour of whatever happened to be 
the background of the battery. They would be made of the lightest materials, 
and would be used to deceive the eye of an enemy when he discovered 
the exact position of a gun (which however would very seldom be the case). 
A screen of this kind through which the gun could be laid, but which would 
effectually obscure the view to an enemy, has the following recom¬ 
mendations : it can in a moment be replaced. It forces the enemy 
in order to have the chance of hitting the gun in the firing position, 
to waste his fire all the time it is down, and as that fire is utterly 
thrown away while the gun is down in the loading position, it follows 
that an enemy besides having to overcome the very great difficulty of hitting 
