194 
BURSTING OP HEAVY GUNS. 
the “ 3 B coil ” cleared the rear edge of the “ 2 C coil.” I cannot 
exactly say where the shot would be when this occurred, but it needs 
but little calculation to arrive at it. The breech portion and the shot 
would move through distances proportionate to their weights in this 
time, the front portion of the gun and carriage would recoil, impeded 
by inertia and mechanical resistance—hydraulic and frictional—and the 
breech would doubtless hold on to it, and experience considerable 
resistance in separating from it. Now, it appears impossible that the 
B and C coils could clear each other till after the projectile had left the 
muzzle of the gun; consequently, the escape of gas must be compara¬ 
tively very small. 
It may be seen that the whole of this accords with what is reported; 
that is to say, if the steel tube yielded, we might expect the gun to 
come asunder in the longitudinal direction, to do so gradually, and with 
but little injury to the exterior coils, and with little escape of gas. 
While the line I have supposed the gun to yield at, and part of the 
above explanation, may be only matters of probability, I am informed 
for certain that the gun has only been fractured in the steel tube, and 
has gone in the general manner I indicate, and I am only stating what 
I believe to be the judgment of those best qualified to give an opinion 
on the matter, in speaking of the accident as I do, as in no way 
arguing the probability of one of a more dangerous character. It is 
serious enough, and alarming enough, for a monstrous gun to come 
asunder in any way. At all events, it is to be said that it has done so 
in as little dangerous a manner as could well be imagined. 
Major Morgan, It. A., once advocated making a gun that was 
intended to behave every time it was fired very much as this gun has 
done—that is to say, he made the breech portion separate from the 
rest, only adding to it a piston, which entered the bore and fitted 
tight in it by means of a gas-check. This breech portion he intended 
to recoil, opening the breech some little time after the shot had cleared 
the muzzle. He considered his system suited to very heavy ordnance. 
With the exception, then, of his tightly-closing arrangement acting 
before the piston cleared the bottom of the bore, this 100-ton gun has 
probably in a rough way brought his idea into practice more nearly 
than many ever expected to see it. If Major Morgan is equal to the 
occasion, may we not expect him to write from Malta, pointing out 
that the 100-ton gun was a magnificent weapon, but it had the 
fault of being a muzzle-loader ? Now, however, that it has yielded 
longitudinally, and without serious injury to turret or men, it has 
transformed itself not only into a breech-loader, but into a very 
advanced type of breech-loader, and one which requires absolutely 
no longitudinal strength. 
We must not, however, make light of this matter—which is serious 
enough. There can be no question that, whether dangerous or not in 
its results, the gun failed in a way that was never contemplated. Sup¬ 
posing the above explanation right, to what cause is the fault to be 
attributed? Is it due (1) to some abnormal strain that the gun was 
never designed to meet; (2) to anything inherent in the wrought-iron 
built-up system of construction; (3) to some defect in the application 
of the system to this particular gun; (4) to bad material ? 
