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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
line of guns should be placed. I shall afterwards state why I think 
he has hardly fixed on a sufficient elevation :— 
<c It is very difficult to ascertain tlie exact distance of a ship from a 
navalofficei^ low battery, unless you know the height of her mast-heads, and my 
belief is that with practice (which is indispensable), the same accuracy 
and rapidity of fire can be obtained from a high battery as from a low. The 
alteration of elevation spoken of as necessary while loading, should not involve any 
appreciable loss of time. 
“ Two disadvantages of the medium height 6 are omitted :—1. The danger of 
firing shell over the heads of the gunners in the front line. 2. The low angle at 
which the shot would strike the deck of a ship would not suffice for penetration. 
“ Some experiments carried out at my suggestion last year, showed that 9-inch 
shot striking our 1-inch or 1^-inch iron decks would glance at an angle of 8°. 
“ I would, as soon as possible, place 9-inch guns in suitable positions, at heights 
of from 500 to 800 ft.—not more than two in each position (if this is practicable), 
placing the magazines away from the guns in safety. Each of these guns would 
command the whole anchorage, and be in comparative security from the enemy’s 
fire. 
“ The low batteries are of less importance, and must be made very secure against 
close attack by iron-clads. 
“ We should fire common shell with large bursting charges and time fuzes at the 
high guns, but would concentrate two or three ships on the low batteries at close 
quarters, and use Palliser shot and shell. 
“ In the low batteries, nothing less than 10-inch guns should be placed; in the 
high batteries, 9-inch guns would be nearly equally efficacious.” 
Ferdinand’s Battery, in the Queen’s Road, is about 
Reason for 620 ft. high; and this I have taken in the outset as the 
asTii^h as 118 height below which guns become intermediate guns, corres- 
possible. ponding to gun 0. I have also stated that I believe the 
extreme height a better than any lower site. Gibraltar is 
almost the only fortress in which guns can be placed at a great height, 
and it appears to me to be an error to throw away the advantage 
thus obtained. 
The line of fire of a gun in Ferdinand’s Battery would form an angle 
of less than 8° with the deck of a ship at 1500 yds., while the ship 
would require to be 3000 yds. distant from the gun a before the line 
of fire of that gun would diminish to the same angle; yet the com¬ 
parative distance would be but a very little greater, while the gun in 
Ferdinand’s Battery would not be secure from the fire of a ship at that 
comparatively short range. Why, therefore, reject the higher site, 
where absolutely no protection for the gun itself would be needed ? 
I view with alarm the positions of the magazines, as now 
Positions of being made near the 9-inch guns. The idea of so placing them 
magazines. se ems to be, that as a gun is no use without its ammunition, 
should the magazine be blown up, the gun may as well go too ! The 
magazines throughout the Rock are not so well chosen as to give 
confidence in the infallibility of our Engineers in choosing positions for 
these structures, and it would be well if the arm of the service which 
is chiefly called on to work in their dangerous proximity, should have a 
leading voice in the matter. The rapid working of the gun would not 
