RECENT DREDGING IN CATTEWATER. 
407 
That she is a relic of the great storm of 1824 may be dismissed 
at once. Her construction, ballast, depth in silt, and position, all 
point to an earlier period. Not a trace of anchors or cables came 
to light. The only discoveries made in situ were a wooden block, 
the remains of a wooden shovel, and a round copper cover. The 
former were nearer the surface, but the cover was found ten feet 
below the harbour level of the silt. It has the appearance of, and 
was probably used as, the cover of a magazine, perhaps containing 
loose powder. 
As the dredger dug among the ruins, dispersing them — rolling 
timber forward and spreading it over a larger area, occasionally 
bringing up some portion of the wreck — a sharp look-out was 
kept for anything that might turn up that would throw some 
light on this long-forgotten relic of the past. 
When hope was almost abandoned, the buckets fished up what 
appeared to be a mud-laden piece of timber, which fell with a 
thud on the shute, and fortunately rolled from it on to the deck of 
the hopper. A slight examination discovered the small cannon 
now exhibited; and after a thorough cleansing and examina- 
tion this was found to be a cast-iron gun marked with the letter P, 
and its weight 1 cwt. 0 qrs. 3 lbs. The total length of the gun 
is 2 feet 9|- inches ; diameter of bore, If inches. Greatest 
circumference of muzzle, 15 inches ; smallest circumference, 
11-|- inches; circumference at vent, 17^ inches. Present weight, 
110^ lbs., or 4i lbs. less than original weight. 
On probing the bore, it was found to be loaded ; and with some 
patience oakum wadding, a cast-iron ball of just half a pound 
weight, more wadding, and the remains of a powder eharge, 
consisting of charcoal and sulphur (all the soluble nitre being, 
of course, washed out), were extracted. 
The identification of the period of the gun was somewhat 
difficult, owing to the scarcity of seventeenth-century examples in 
any of the museums in London. I searched the Tower, British 
Museum, and the Eoyal United Service Institution Museum 
unsu«cessfully ; but on proceeding to the Rotunda, the Museum 
of Artillery at Woolwich, I found ample material to work upon. 
The earliest known example in this country of a piece of 
ordnance containing cast-iron in its construction is a wrought-iron 
bombard of 15 -inch calibre, containing an inner cast-iron tube. 
It threw stone shot of 1 60 lbs. weight, and is at least as old 
VOL. IX. 2 F 
