BURSTING OF HEAVY GUNS. 
185 
has had its bottom broken up, and the circle of fragments adjacent to 
it have been, you observe, driven forward so as to be violently scored and 
wedged by anterior portions of the shell, and forced outwards so as to have 
the iron pressed into the grooves of the gun and actually moulded to them. 
Obviously the bore must have been intact while the iron was being thus moulded; 
to it. The scoring of the interior evidently was at the same time so violent , 
and also so symmetrical , that it must have been done while the projectile ivas 
still held in the bore. The tool marks round the shell's exterior, including 
the portions forced into the grooves, are so clear and sharp that, as has 
been pointed out by Colonel Maitland, they could not have been subject 
to violent rubbing along the bore. In other words, the gun must have 
yielded just as the shell was set up and wedged into the grooves. The marks 
of great violence and wedging on so many parts of the common shell 
argue the probability of a tremendous shock being given to the gun. 
Does it not appear probable, then, that the bottom of the common shell 
was shivered comparatively easily , and that the full shock fell on the gun 
as the broken shell set up and wedged in the bore ? This might easily 
explain a more forward fracture than would occur with solid shot, when 
the front projectile would give its full resistance at once, and then move 
forward intact. There is one very curious fact to be noticed here—* 
namely, that the choke of the front cartridge was picked up unconsumed in 
the head of the common shell. This, then, was driven up into the interior of 
the latter. before the gas could consume it; indicating hoio immediate was 
the breaking in of the base of the common shell. When once wedged among 
metal fragments it might easily escape consumption, as anyone will 
admit who knows how large a hole must be drilled in the base of a shell 
to allow a flash to enter the interior. This might justify the difficulty 
originally felt by some at the forward position of the burst. At the 
same time it would show that Sir W. Palliser's experiments, whatever 
they might teach, would not fully represent the case of double loading 
with a shell in front of a shot. Were I to draw a figure at the moment 
of bursting now, I should show the front of the common shell ( vide 
Fig. 10) in its position when rammed home, and the rear of it broken and 
jammed up so as to be somewhere from 90 ins. to 96 ins. from the bottom 
of the bore. The Palliser projectile would have moved some distance 
forward. Finally, pending the discovery of indications on this portion 
of the second gun, which is not now open to examination, I should place 
the front part of the body next the head, which is of the full diameter, at 
69 ins. from the bottom of the bore; because at that spot in the first gun 
was found a bright pressure mark extending for 6 ins., apparently made 
by the body of the projectile being forced against it. This would bring 
the point to about 84 ins. from the bottom of the bore, and within about 
2 ins. of the original position of the front projectile, and about lOins., 
or rather more, from the bottom as now driven up. At the moment of 
explosion doubtless the chilled projectile broke across, and I think that 
at this moment all its studs were sheared. A portion of a stud is left, 
but not, I think, more than might be due to the windage enabling the 
roots of the stud to escape, the shearing by the uppermost groove. 
With this exception the studs are symmetrically sheared, and therefore, 
I believe, sheared in the bore. 
22 
