THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
405 
nowicz, a Polish Officer, and called The Great Art of Artillery :* "This 
Grenado is most frequently armed with Leaden Bullets ; that is the outside of 
it is covered with them, that it may do the greater execution. In order to do 
this, you must first coat the Grenado with melted wax, which must have a 
certain quantity of colophonef mixed with it; into which you may sink as 
many Musquet Balls as you please whilst it is cooling: then wrap the whole 
up in a cloth and bind it well round with packthread.”— The Great Art of 
Artillery , p. 212. 
This passage removes all doubt as to the fact that shells have been con¬ 
structed upon the erroneous principle which I have explained; for, in the first 
place, the “ grenados” in question were hand grenades, and as these could not 
have been thrown with sufficient velocity to communicate an effective 
forward velocity to the bullets after rupture, clearly the bullets must have 
derived their effect from another agency, and that agency must have been the 
bursting charge of the shell; and, in the second place, the fact of the 
bullets being placed outside the shell seems to point towards the same 
conclusion, for by placing them outside, the whole of the interior of the 
shell became available for the reception of the bursting charge, and as, 
according to my view, the effect of the bullets depended upon the bursting 
charge, by this arrangement that effect would be proportionally increased. 
51hly. That the leading principle of Shrapnel fire—the theory of the 
projectile, if I may so designate it—had not made a very permanent 
impression on the minds of the French artillerists of the 17th Century, if it 
had ever been known to them, must be concluded from the fact that it was 
unknown to French officers of the highest rank and experience in the 18th 
and the beginning of the 19th Centuries! That this was the case is placed 
beyond all doubt by a note appended to Decker's Traiti JLlementaire 
d’Artillerie, by the French translators, Colonel J. Ravichio de Peretsdorf 
and Capt. A. P. F. Nancy : " Ces projectiles lie peuvent pas etre, a beaucoup 
pres, aussi terribles qu'on les represente. Les balles n'etant point serrees 
sur la petite quantite de poudre renfermee dans l'obus, celle-ci ne peut leur 
communiquer, par suite de Vexplosion, une quantite de mouvement capable 
de les porter assez loin et avec assez de force pour les rendre vraimenl 
meurtrieres. Des experiences faites a Yincennes sout venues a l'appui de 
ce raisonnement, et ont deinontre que les Schrapenschels etaient reellement 
de fort peu d'effet. Pour les rendre plus meurtriers, un officier Frangais a 
propose de les composer de deux enveloppes conceiitriques en fer coule, 
entre les quelles seraient placees les balles, et dont celle de l'interieur 
contiendrait la poudre. II n'est pas douteux que de cette maniere la force de 
F explosion ne communiquat aux balles une quantite do mouvement beaucoup 
plus considerable, et ne les rendit par consequent beaucoup plus meurtrieres; 
mais aussi la fabrication en deviendrait certainement beaucoup plus difficile 
* This work is, I believe, very rare. I am indebted to Colonel Lefroy for the loan of a copy of 
the English translation, (the original work was in Latin), published in 1729. There is a copy of the 
work in the Royal Artillery Library, at Woolwich, 
f Powdered rosin. 
