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charge of powder, a Prussian committee attributing the failure to in¬ 
feriority of the metal. In Russia, during the same year, a 9\-inch gun 
of Krupp's steel burst at the sixty-sixth round, and an 8^-inch similar 
gun burst at the ninety-sixth round. 
In June or July, 1866, a 9-inch Krupp gun burst in Russia at the 
fifty-sixth round; while in the same year a field gun by the same maker 
burst at Berlin, killing three cadets. 
During the Prussian campaign against Austria in 1866, six Prussian 
steel field guns burst. 
In January, 1867, a 7-inch Krupp gun burst at the second round of 
proof at Woolwich; and in the same year a 4-pr. burst at Tezel, near 
Berlin, killing two men. 
In 1868, an 8-inch Krupp gun burst on board a Russian frigate very 
destructively, killing and wounding in all twelve men. 
In 1869 (January 27th), a similar gun burst in Prussia into twenty 
pieces. 
Besides these guns, large guns constructed of steel, supplied either 
by Krupp or Petin and Gaudet, have burst violently at Madrid and 
Turin. 
The admitted caprice of steel has always led Sir J. Whitworth to 
propose a special steel for his guns, and for testing the quality of which 
he relies upon special methods peculiar to himself, of which the results 
only, and not the actual experiments made, are known. 
Thus, in 1863, he advocated “ homogeneous metal” with great 
earnestness, and after many private trials, the results of which were 
declared conclusive in its favour. But this metal never came into 
use, and has now dropped completely out of sight, so that we may be 
allowed to rank it, as regards uncertainty and danger for ordnance use, 
with other descriptions of steel. 
But Sir J. Whitworth now believes that “ Whitworth metal,” or 
“ compressed steel,” will meet all his requirements; and for the last 
three years and a half this material has undergone the same process of 
private experiment and of introduction to the authorities that was 
formerly practised for “ homogeneous metal.” 
If it really possessed the superior qualities ascribed to it, its money 
success for commercial purposes would be immense and already assured, 
and three years and a half would have proved a sufficient time to bring 
it into use; at present, however, there is no evidence of its being 
regarded with greater favour by manufacturers and engineers than the 
old “ homogeneous metal.” 
The Government has repeatedly applied to Sir J. Whitworth for 
gun-tubes of this “ compressed ” metal, but the application has been 
persistently declined. 
In fact, Sir Joseph has made it to be clearly understood that a trial 
of his new metal, of the value of which we have no independent practical 
guarantee or experience, can only be accorded to the Government on 
the condition of their undertaking to reconsider the old questions as to 
the merit of Whitworth rifling and Whitworth projectiles. 
The Whitworth rifling is polygonal, the transverse section of the 
bore being a hexagon with the angles rounded off, and the projectile is 
