THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
187 
an old embankment some 20 ft. high; in action the pieces were laid 
by points similar to those nsed with mortars. 
The batteries for the field-guns were adjacent and subsidiary to 
those of the more advanced heavy guns. 
In most cases no embrasures were used, the elevation of the guns 
allowing them to be fired over a solid parapet; but in some of the 
batteries nearest to the place, owing to the depression of the line 
of fire, shallow and open embrasures, perhaps 1^ ft. deep, had to 
be cut. The field-guns, in order to enjoy somewhat similar ad¬ 
vantages of parapet, were raised on planks laid under the wheels 
and trail. 
The platform arrangement included two inclined planes to take 
the wheels in their recoil. Each gun takes these with it from its 
original arsenal. They are made of stout plank faced with sheet- 
iron ; are 8 or 9 ft. long, and rise about 1 in 6. On discharge of the 
piece, the wheels quietly ran up the ascents for about two-thirds of 
their length, and then as quietly returned to their former place. The 
remainder of the platform consisted merely of planks laid across 
under these planes, and receiving the trail of the gun; there is so 
little stress on them that planks picked up in the neighbourhood are 
generally good enough. 
The magazines offered little peculiarity beyond that they were 
very small; they were generally in the epaulement; but a great 
deal of ammunition was kept in the cellars of adjacent houses out of 
the line of fire. 
In loading, the shell was put into the bore of the gun by means 
of a cradle fitting on to the breech; after each discharge the gun 
was sponged out, a bucket of soapy water being at hand to dip the 
sponge in; and twice in the 24 hours the breech-closing apparatus 
was taken to pieces and oiled; but these two precautions, the com¬ 
manding officer told me, might be omitted without inconvenience for 
an indefinite time. 
In laying, the guns with much elevation (some had 14°), got the 
line first point-blank and the elevation afterwards; the others were 
laid at one operation. 
The bombardment had been ordered to commence at 7 a.m., and 
at that hour, objects being still but dimly visible, the harsh crack 
0 oenin fire ^ rom a s ^ ee ^ g un broke the stillness, and after some seconds 
penmg re. a kittle cloud of smoke and dust in the town declared the 
effect and sent back a muffled report; then a gun in each of the 
next batteries right and left took it up, acknowledged after a like 
interval by each battery successively in the circle. But the second 
gun in the first battery did not give its first fire till 4 minutes after 
the first gun; and such was the rate of succession in each battery; for 
the (to me, very curious) order on the subject was, that each gun 
should fire but once in a quarter of an hour by day, and each battery 
(of 4 guns) once in the same time by night. 
Whether the continued and regular recurrence of a crash amongst 
the houses of the town, at unswerving intervals, was supposed to 
