THE ROYAL ARTILLBRY INSTITUTION. 
19 
OUB 
RIFLED PROJECTILES AND PUZES; 
PRESENT CONSTRUCTION AND PROBABLE EFFICIENCY ON SERVICE, 
A PAPRR READ AT THE R.A, INSTITUTION, WOOLWICH, MARCH 8, 1S7Q ? 
BY 
CAPTAIN C. OBDE BROWNE, R.A., j 
CAPTAIN INSTBECIOB, BQYAL I 1 4BOI^ATOBY, 
Colonel J. M. Adye, C.B., R.A, in the Chaib, 
It will be my aim to-day, without going into details, to bring before 
you a short summary of the actual condition of our service rifled pro^ 
jectiles, in order that officers who may not have time and opportunity 
themselves, may, without waste of labour, have them brought before 
them, and so may be induced to give us the benefit of opinions 
rendered specially valuable by being based on actual experience, 
Were it the practice, from time to time, for officers engaged in any 
special branch of work to do this, without necessarily pretending to 
anything beyond that knowledge of facts which their work nmst give 
them; and were this really taken up by yon, I say, soberly, that I see 
no reason why discussions here might not be the best of their kind in, 
the world. 
I hold our artillery materiel to be, at all events, inferior to none. 
In ancient times we were the first European nation to use cannon \ 
the very name of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shell—well known 
in all civilized armies—prove that we have in modem times also taken 
the lead; while recently, when allied with the French in the Crimea, 
we may recall the fact of their borrowing onr iron guns when their own 
bronze pieces failed; and when, in answer to a request for fuzes, we 
sent them some about as good as and much like their own, some of us 
may remember their bringing them back and throwing them down, 
saying, “ Nous ne voulons pas ces choses , nous voulons la fuzee de Boxer” 
I naturally have pleasure in calling to mind an incident like this, when 
the retirement of General Boxer from the head of my Department 
enables me to notice such things without any feeling of awkwardness. 
At the present time, England has been manufacturing materiel so 
largely for Sweden, Russia, Italy, Denmark, Turkey, Egypt, America, 
Ac., that she has become a sort of arsenal to the world. Certainly, 
[vol. vii.] 3 
