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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
5. Facility of manufacture .—Considerable stress Has been laid upon 
the greater simplicity of manufacturing bronze guns, and undoubtedly 
the operation of casting is simpler than that of coiling and forging. In 
practice however the casting of bronze is not found to be such a simple 
matter as it at first sight appears. On reference to the records of the 
Royal Grun Factories we find that even in its best days, the casting of 
sound bronze guns was accomplished with considerable difficulty, as, on 
an average, nearly one out of every three blocks had to be condemned 
even for smooth-bored pieces; while the fact that at the present time 
the rough casting for an 8 cwt. gun requires 24 cwt. of metal in order 
even to approximate to soundness, indicates that the process is not an 
extremely easy one, nor can it be said to have been brought to perfec¬ 
tion. Moreover the difficulties which have always attended the casting 
of bronze guns even when new metal was used are greatly increased 
when it is attempted to utilise old gun-metal. Mr. Mallet points this out 
at page 86 of his work on the “ Construction of Artillery,” and, arguing 
from experiments, attributes the uncertainty of the result to the unequal 
oxidation of the two metals copper and tin, which leads to a change in 
the proportions of the metals present after each re-melting. This neces¬ 
sitates the addition of from 10 to 15 per cent, of new gun-metal to the 
old guns when being re-cast, as well as additional tin to compensate for 
the greater oxidation of that metal. So that before we can practically 
utilise the existing stock of old guns a considerable outlay has to be 
made for new metal to mix with them, and even then the result is not 
satisfactory. 
On the other hand the whole of the difficulties which have at any 
time interfered with the rapid and certain production of good iron guns 
have, thanks to the genius and perseverance of our Civil Engineers 
and mechanicians, been entirely overcome, and we would appear to 
be throwing away the whole of the advantages we possess in this 
respect over other countries should we adopt an inferior metal for 
our guns on the ground that the manufacture is less complicated. 
We are now in possession of the whole of the appliances necessary 
for the manufacture of thoroughly sound and trustworthy iron guns 
from two cwt. up to thirty-five tons , and, with our existing plant and 
machinery we are in a position to turn out field guns of this material 
quite as rapidly as, if not more so than, those of bronze. Is there then 
any sufficient reason why we should fall back for home service upon a 
system which, though apparently simple, has never been really satis¬ 
factory, and which must consequently require experiments and time to 
bring it to perfection. 
These remarks do not of course apply to India, where the method 
of building up iron guns is quite unknown, while that of casting 
in bronze, such as it is, has been familiar for ages to the Hindoos; 
neither are the materials for iron and steel guns obtainable in the 
country. As therefore it has been decided that India should make 
her own field guns and thus be independent of this country (and 
this can only be done by making them of bronze), it would appear 
advisable to try if it be possible to make good and trustworthy guns of 
this material, and to experiment with this view. For home service, on 
