206 
MINUTES OP PROCEEDINGS OF 
NOTE I. 
I 
It is not intended by using the word “ discovery " in the foregoing 
paper, to lay down that chill casting bronze, or casting that metal 
under pressure, was for the first time thought of by General Von 
Uchatius ;* but that he first of all has discovered a way of practically 
utilizing knowledge already existing upon the subject. 
The two modes above mentioned of improving bronze, as well as the 
method of subsequent treatment by compression, have long ago been 
proposed, and in some cases partially carried; as for instance, in the 
compressing the interior of the bore of the bronze S.B. pieces by 
forcing in a conical mandril, which used to be practised at the Eoyal 
Arsenal, Woolwich. 
We find in “ Mallet's Construction of Artillery," written in 1856, 
that the author proposes, as he says,—“ For the first time * * * 
Absolute chill-casting of bronze guns in naked and massive iron moulds 
* * * which would admit of an almost unlimited increase of statical 
pressure on the head of metal, and would facilitate the delicate process 
of casting bronze guns hollow upon slender loam cores * * This 
method of casting," he further says, u would also give great facility to 
cooling the gun by currents of air through the interior of the core if 
thought desirable." 
We know also that the process of casting steel under pressure has 
been in vogue for some time and on a tolerably large scale. 
Colonel Rosset, of the Italian Artillery, as before mentioned, has 
been carrying out experiments in the Arsenal, at Turin, with bronze 
and other metals. A 7*5c B.L. bronze gun, cast in an iron mould, 
gave such satisfactory results that he reported that this mode of 
casting should be adopted, not only as giving metal of much better 
quality, but also as being much more economical; the expense of 
constructing new moulds for each gun being done away with as well as 
other expenses. 
Not only was the elasticity, homogeneity, and hardness of the metal 
thus much increased, but also its tensile strength was augmented by as 
much as 50°/ o . 
The Committee on Field Artillery for India in 1870,—President, 
Major-General Eardley Wilmot, R.A.—were quite alive to the defects 
arising from the comparative softness of bronze, and suggested several 
methods of hardening the metal; either by condensing the driving 
sides of the grooves by pressure, hammering the gun-block externally 
or internally, and externally on a taper iron mandril, by casting under 
hydraulic pressure, or by adding other ingredients to the alloy. 
Time did not then admit of experiments being carried out as 
proposed, and on the introduction of iron and steel guns, the subject 
lost most of its interest with us. 
Further investigations have, however, been continued by a com- 
* General Von Uchatius is already well known as the inventor of the Uchatius process 
of steel manufacture which is now employed in England, by Mr. Williams. For descrip¬ 
tion, vide Dr. Percy’s “ Metallurgy,” p. 802. Edition, 1864. 
