480 
SYNOPTICAL CHARTS. 
there is a great difference between an effective breaching range of 800 
yards and an extreme range at 45 degrees elevation of 800 paces. 
The effective breaching range of Tartaglia’s ‘‘ culverin” can hardly 
have exceeded 400 yards. A hundred years afterwards, as we have 
just seen, the effective range was something over 600 yards. 
This improvement was probably due to the invention of corned 
powder some time in the seventeenth century. 
“ There was in ancient time a kind of powder called serpentine,” 
writes Eldred, the Master Gunner of Dover Castle, in 1646, “ not 
corned as the powder that we use in these days.” 
Siege guns can hardly be said to have existed in the proper sense of 
the term before the introduction of cast-iron shot in 1480. 
The huge bombard of Mahomet II., throwing a stone shot weighing 
670 lbs.—a sister gun to which may be seen with two piles of shot at 
the Rotunda Museum—was actually laid in position before the walls 
of Constantinople in 1453. It fired seven rounds a day, and then 
burst. 
It was magnificent, but it was not siege artillery, the history of 
which is, therefore, not traced further back than the year 1500, from 
which period for the next century the “ culverin,” as the typical siege 
piece, is credited with an effective range of 400 yards. We have thus 
traced backwards the effective breaching langes of typical siege 
pieces—the 6-inch, howitzer, 24-pr. iron gun, and the 15-pr., 19-pr. and 
20-pr. ‘‘ culverin,” from the present time to the year 1500. 
Without going into detail regarding the remaining columns of the 
chart, I would recapitulate in conclusion the advantages claimed for 
the graphic presentment of history, as exemplified by the chart we 
have just examined: — 
1. —A general conspectus of the salient features of the history of the 
art of war can be obtained at a glance. 
2. —The action and reaction of artillery and fortification upon one 
another are clearly brought out. 
For instance, the two chief periods in the history of artillery—marked 
by the introduction of cast-iron shot and of rifled ordnance—each cause 
a change of trace, and introduce a new material into fortification. 
3. —To the student of any particular campaign the chart gives an 
immediate idea of the condition of artillery inventions and manufacture 
at the time ; it also shows current ideas in fortification. To obtain this 
information from books would often necessitate reference to many 
authorities before a clear idea on the subject could be obtained. 
4. —A chart which can be hung up, and is therefore always exposed 
to view, is more easily and readily referred to than a book. 
Discussion. 
Major R. H. MURDOCH, R.A.Colonel Corbett, ladies and gentle¬ 
men, permit me to occupy just a few moments with the record aspect of 
one of these synoptical charts. 
Certainly the most efficacious method of awakening interest and con¬ 
veying instruction to the young military student is the optic and synop¬ 
tic, exactly as only by combining the synthetic and analytic does the 
