388 
MINUTES OE PROCEEDINGS OE 
“ The splinters of the shell describe curves generated from the projectile 
curve,, and impulse of the flame that separates them ; they will therefore 
proceed in nearly the path of the shell, when the velocity of the shell much 
exceeds that which the splinters are impelled with. 
“ N.B.—A 13-inch shell may be loaded with 1000 balls; a 10-inch with 
550 ; an 8-inch with 200; a 32-pr. shell with 110 ; a royal with 80 ; and 
a coehorn with 50. Were shells cast thinner, the effect would be still 
greater, and less powder required to open them. 
“ The balls may be spread more or less; by opening the shell, at a greater 
or less distance from the object. 
“ The shells broke into more than twenty splinters, all of which fell 
close round the balls. 
“ HENRY SHRAPNEL, 
“ Lieut. Royal Artillery.” 
It was early found that the effect of round shot or case, against infantry 
or cavalry in the field, was under many circumstances very trifling indeed, 
and an attempt was made to improve artillery fire by projecting shells 
horizontally. Common shell having been long used with mortars, it 
appears to us—with our present experience—to be an easy step from a 
mortar shell to a gun shell; but, in fact, the adaptation was attended with 
many difficulties, involving, as it eventually did, a revolution in the con¬ 
struction of field guns, and the introduction of howitzers.* It then became 
an object to fire shells with high velocities. 
We made experiments in England in the same direction, as appears from 
the following extract from Lawson’s MSS., R.A. Institution :— 
“ Experiments were made on Acton Common in 1760, to fire coehorn and royal 
shells from 12 and 24-prs., in order to be applied to the sea service; but as the 
shells were found frequently to burst in the guns, it was thought too hazardous to 
introduce them on board ships of war.”— Lawson's MSS. 
These premature bursts also occurred at Gibraltar during the celebrated 
defence of that place, for Herriott records that “ Lieut. Cuppage, R.A. 
was dangerously wounded by a splinter of a small shell which burst imme¬ 
diately after being discharged from the Rock gun.” Lieutenant Cuppage, 
however, lived to do good service, and especially as Inspector of the Royal 
Carriage Department, into which he introduced special machinery, and by 
his exertions placed the establishment far ahead of anything of that kind 
in any part of the world. 
It was at the siege of Gibraltar that Lieutenant Shrapnel is supposed to 
have received his first ideas of the projectile which now bears his name. It 
is stated that of 2000, 24-pr. shot fired from the Rock, only twenty-six 
Spaniards had been observed to have been carried off killed or wounded; 
* Howitzers were used in the allied (Anglo-Dutch) army in the war of 1688—’97, and became 
known tp fhp French artillerists by some of them being captured at the Battle of Neerwinden in 
1793* 
