THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
79 
By their joint efforts, backed by the representations of the “ General 
Director of Artillery,” Ritter von Hauslab, the government was first induced 
to extend the experiments, and next to purchase the invention for the sum 
of 16,000 gulden (about £1350). A gun-cotton committee was appointed, 
of which von Hauslab was named President, with instructions to make 
searching inquiry into the material as improved by Baron von Lenk, and 
adapt it if possible to the use of the service. 
It was in 1852- that the committee was appointed; early in 1853 their 
experiments began. The first conclusion drawn from their trials was that 
gun-cotton is better suited to artillery than to small arms, and that the first 
object of their endeavours should be to perfect it for the use of ordnance. 
In order to produce the cotton on a larger scale the Chateau of Hirtenberg, 
not far from Wiener-Neustadt, was purchased and turned into a manu¬ 
factory; and soon afterwards the construction of a 12-pr. gun-cotton battery 
was determined upon*. 
The battery consisted of 6 guns and 2 howitzers, constructed almost 
exclusively from the designs of Baron von Lenk, who was named shortly 
afterwards Director of the gun-cotton materiel. The pieces were shorter 
than usual in the bore, but had a greater strength of metal at the base ring; 
they had short conical shaped chambers, and the charges were of compressed 
cotton. 
This battery was certainly superior in many points to those of the 
established system. The pieces admitted of easier and quicker loading, the 
carriages were lighter, and there was increased accommodation for ammu¬ 
nition, but these were held to be as much due to other improvements as to 
any advantages necessarily resulting from the use of cotton. The superiority 
in range, accuracy and percussive force of the shot was disputed; in the 
execution of field manoeuvres the battery was excellent, but it had so active 
a commander and such able officers that it would undoubtedly have been a 
model battery under any circumstances. 
Its performances gave sufficient confidence for four more batteries to be 
ordered, and they were to be attached to the army of observation which was 
then (1855) in Gallicia. They were never brought into use. The war 
with Russia ended, the army was reduced, and a close examination of the 
state of the gun-cotton pieces showed that besides other objections, which 
had been already noticed, the effect of gun-cotton was ruinous to the bore. 
It had been observed that the cotton was of very irregular strength,—that 
part of the charge was sometimes thrown out unignited,—that the range of 
the shot was sometimes far too short, and that the percussive force was very 
variable. Sometimes blue flames were visible in the bore for some seconds 
after the discharge, and more than once it happened that the charge took 
fire before the loading was completed. The examination of the bore showed 
that the inside was much deteriorated, and that in the vicinity of the vent, 
especially, it was burnt and enlarged in an incredible degree.* 
In short the cotton had proved to be more destructive to the piece than 
* Most of these results were probably due to the cartridges being made of compressed cotton, as 
stated in a preceding paragraph. In making up cartridges on the present plan compression is 
carefully avoided. 
