196 
MINUTES OF PKOCEEDINGS OF 
As was the case with Prussia, we soon discovered that, notwithstanding 
the excellent results given by some individual guns, bronze was so 
uncertain a material as to quality, that it could not be relied upon for 
rifled guns. Further service developed so many defects in these 9-prs. 
that they have now been withdrawn, and replaced by B.M.L. pieces, 
constructed of the materials originally used with our rifled field guns, 
viz., wrought iron and steel, materials which have proved thoroughly 
efficient for the purpose required. 
Writing in 1856 concerning bronze as a material for cannon, 
Dr. Mallet says :—■“It is astonishing to find that after five hundred years 
habitual use of this material, the military literature of Europe appears 
barren of a single series of systematized and accurate experiments on 
the physical properties of gun-metal.* Nor has America produced such, 
although in advance by the shill and energy devoted to the improve¬ 
ment of its ordnance which its numerous government reports display.^ 
Such an enquiry remains still to reward the labour and well directed 
knowledge that shall be bestowed upon it, and should gun-metal 
always continue to form the staple material for field Artillery (which 
however appears by no means probable) it would be an object worthy 
of national undertaking, an expenditure as being utterly beyond the 
reach of private effort or the demands of commerce.” 
Since 1856, however, much attention has been paid by scientific 
investigators to the improvement of bronze, and many attempts have 
been made to improve its quality both in hardness and homogeneity, by 
altering the proportions of the constituents and by adding small portions 
of other metals or non metals. None of these attempts have as yet 
proved satisfactory, unless bronze steel turn out an exception. 
Phosphor-bronze containing small quantities of phosphorus has been 
extensively tried and given a metal of more uniform character and 
also stronger than bronze.{ 
Experiments carried on lately in Belgium and at Tegel in Prussia 
with this alloy induced the latter power to give it further trial. A B.L. 
9c (3*5) with charge of l*5-lb. of powder and 18 lbs. shot was tested to 
destruction by gradually reducing its thickness after each series of 
firings and the result proved that there was no danger with phosphor 
bronze of a gun bursting without previous notice, while the metal is 
both harder and more elastic than common bronze. The Prussian 
authorities have ordered two 6-pr. and a 24-pr. of this metal to be 
cast at Spandau for testing it still further. 
* By the term “ gun-metal” is meant an alloy of copper with tin, containing from 8 to 12 
parts of the latter to 100 of the former, but in America we find this word also applied to 
cast iron of certain qualities. 
t The annual reports prepared by the Bureau of ordnance and presented to Congress are 
worth study by artillery officers, being carefully condensed summaries of the latest 
experimental researches in America, and remarkable for their completeness. 
t This alloy is much used now for bearings in machinery and is on trial for pipe boxes 
of field carriages, sheaves for blocks, &c. 
