30 
MINUTES OE PROCEEDINGS OF 
The land service has been content to follow in the wake of the navy, and 
the country is at this moment on the brink of a gigantic expenditure for 
iron fortifications. 
The imperative necessity for improved works, pointed out by Engineer 
Officers, who have clearly seen the dilemma approaching (some of whom are 
quoted) is at last acknowledged on all hands, and there appears nothing for 
it now, in order to protect our guns and gunners, but to borrow the unwieldy 
armour which is necessary for ships, and clothe our batteries on shore with 
the same expensive material. 
I cannot help thinking that some method, such as mine, would in a great 
many instances fulfil all that is required, and even occasionally enjoy advant¬ 
ages of its own, independent of economy. These remarks apply with equal if 
not greater force to our distant colonial possessions. I trust, at any rate, that 
whatever amount of success may attend the approaching trial, I may be 
permitted to develope a system which promises to be successful, and which, 
if it does succeed, will save millions to the country, and, what is of still 
more importance, will place our defences on a more satisfactory and efficient 
condition than even the most expensive of those methods that have been 
proposed. 
Annexed is a letter from General Simmons, C.B., Director of the Royal 
Engineer Establishment, Chatham, dated 18th March, 1867, criticizing in a 
very lucid manner the results of my experiments at the date it was written, 
and the objections which, at that time, were supposed to stand in my way. 
My dear Sir, 
I have been looking lately with much interest at the description and plans of 
your proposed system for raising guns, so that they may fire over a parapet, and 
in their recoil, fall down below it, so as to be completely concealed from view. 
The object, the solution of which you have proposed to yourself, is one of very 
great importance to the service, and one which, before I knew you had turned 
your attention to it, had occupied mine so much, that I had tried to direct the 
attention of my brother officers to it, and I have also suggested it as a problem 
requiring solution to some mechanical engineers, thinking it might probably be 
accomplished in a convenient manner by hydraulic power. 
The importance which I attach to an invention of this nature is very great. 
By it the gun is effectually concealed when not in action, and is kept under cover 
for the greater part of the time it is in action. The gun, when placed behind a 
parapet or epaulment, or in a pit, presents no object upon which an enemy can 
direct his fire; the importance of this, when exposed to rifle guns (both small and 
great), cannot be exaggerated, and moreover, it disposes of the difficulties attending 
the embrasures in earthworks, whether for attack or defence. These difficulties 
are very great: 
(1) The embrasures present a fixed and constant target upon which guns may 
be laid. 
(2) Embrasures weaken a parapet, and, as usually constructed, present the 
most favourable conditions for bursting shells fired with percussion fuzes, the thin 
part of the merlon affording just resistance enough to fire the fuze. 
