THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
123 
all strong and enduring—let us say that we hope they are so; certainly, 
when we consider their cost they ought to be so—but of their strength and 
endurance there exists at present no sufficient proof. 
Finally, this change of system which is pressed upon us—’this abandon¬ 
ment of guns of satisfactory and established excellence, in favour of weapons 
whose character as yet rests upon no sufficient basis of experience—could 
be effected only at an increased outlay for the guns themselves of two to 
one, 1 to say nothing of the loss of a national plant of gun-making machinery 
and of a thriving department of national industry. 
We may then fairly ask, in whose interests are these propositions made ? 
—for assuredly they cannot be made in those of England, whether we consider 
them from the point of view of the artillerist, the economist, or the manu¬ 
facturer. 
YIII. 
Conclusion. 
Relative powers of Krupp and Woolwich Guns , with the Descriptions 
and Charges of Powders now officially adopted . 
It is important to observe that, apart from other entanglements, the 
solution of all the difficulties which foreign critics have discovered in the 
Tegel trials really lies in the powder question. It is to the arbitrary 
assumption of Captain von Doppelmair and others that the use of E.L.G. 
powder is necessary to the English system, 2 while the Prussian system is free 
from any such restriction, that the confusion which affects all the foreign 
criticism is due. We have before taken exception to this fundamental 
error. 3 Fortunately, we can appeal to actual experiment to exhibit the 
truth. The following are the facts :— 
Far from the E.L.G. powder having been selected specially for use with 
heavy rifled guns, it was provisionally introduced in 1860 (before a single 
heavy rifled gun had been made), for use with the smaller natures of breech¬ 
loading Armstrong guns. It was one of the first experimental powders 
tried by the Special Committee on Gunpowder, of which Colonel (now 
Major-General) Askwith was President; and Sir William Armstrong having 
observed that it fouled less than ordinary L.G. powder, recommended its 
adoption. The Gunpowder Committee consented to its temporary employ¬ 
ment, pending the completion of the experiments upon which they were 
then engaged with a view to the introduction of a powder better adapted 
1 A glance at tlie tables, at pp. 93, 94, will show that the Krupp guns are twice as costly as the 
English guns. 
2 “ The selection of this energetic powder for the English 9-inch gun was necessary in order to 
obtain high initial velocities with the comparatively short length of the gun.”—Doppelmair, p. 15. 
See also pp. 24, 62. 
3 See pp. 68, 69, 
