408 
MINUTES OF PEOCEEDINGS OF 
1870, fired with the wind blowing across the range from right to left, 
is half again what it is when the wind is blowing from left to right. 
This may be a coincidence; bnt if so it is a very remarkable one; for 
not only is it arrived at by the comparison of a large number of rounds, 
bnt the maximum and minimum as well as the mean range obtained in 
each wind conform to the apparent rule. Mr. Forest informs me he 
should have expected this result, or at all events a tendency to it, from 
the direction of the rocket's rotation; and certainly when it is 
remembered that the velocity of rotation is very rapid and that of transla¬ 
tion comparatively slow, it seems quite reasonable to suppose that the 
greater pressure of air against the side turning rapidly upwards tends to 
make the rocket as it were roll itself downwards; but the matter needs 
investigation. It is, I am glad to say, proposed to introduce carcass 
rockets again, so as to restore to the rocket its incendiary power. 
I might notice that there have been manufacturing difficulties which 
have caused large numbers of the war and life-saving rockets issued to 
the service to fail. Such difficulties are it is hoped now overcome, and 
the old store is being replaced by rockets of stronger and sounder 
make. 
I believe our rocket system is capable of great improvement. Let 
no one suppose that we have solved the problem of how to discharge 
rockets satisfactorily. My own private opinion on this matter is that 
we have been beating about without a sufficiently definite object. We 
have adopted troughs for our land service machines. Now, since a 
rocket discharges itself feebly from a trough as compared with a tube, 
it must be supposed that the recommendations of a trough are simplicity 
and non-liability to foul. As to simplicity, although one trough may 
discharge more than one size of rocket, for the rockets we have decided 
to retain in the service—viz. the 24-pr. and 9-pr. for land service, and 
the 24-pr. for sea service—we have two sizes of trough and one tube ; it 
would be difficult to have more ; and as to fouling, it is quite a question 
whether even a foul tube would discharge a rocket in a worse manner 
than a clean trough. In Abyssinia a tube was used which was sponged 
and acted excellently. 
Then the method of giving elevation is absolutely false, both for the 
land and sea service machines. Its recommendation appears to be 
simplicity. Is it to be wondered at that Mr. Hale should have 
protested against the trough and present method of treating his rockets, 
which Major Geary aptly terms looking on them as “ some sort of 
dangerous wild beast V 9 
Do I greatly exaggerate if I say that the most successful performance 
expected with the service rocket appears to be to discharge it with¬ 
out bursting charge, without incendiary power, without a fair force 
of propulsion, with much less range than the old Congreve, without 
any particular aim, and with a false elevation ? In fact we are 
reminded of the sailor at Sebastopol who fired a shot from a gun, sunk 
in a pit, at 45° elevation, and who, as it went far beyond his ken, 
complacently remarked that it had gone “ somewhere into Booshia." 
I will close the subject of war rockets by mentioning that the navy 
(so Lieut. Dowding informs me) have sometimes obtained enormous 
