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THE MEMORIAL DE ARTILLERIA, MADRID. 
October and November, 1895. 
(A REVIEW.) 
BY 
LIEUT.-COLONEL J. C. DALTON, R.A. 
Tus valuable monthly artillery periodical which always contains matter of 
interest to artillerists, has in its numbers for October and November last some 
articles which are specially worthy of notice. I do not propose here to do more 
than give a sketch of them, though possibly later I may allude to the first of them 
again as it possesses peculiar interest for us. 
In the October number there is an article by Colonel Salvador Ordofiez,! Sub- 
Director of the Artillery Gun Factory at Trubia, on a scheme for the defence of 
the Bay of Algeciras (opposite Gibraltar) with heavy ordnance. Similar schemes 
have been treated of on more than one previous occasion by Spanish artillerists, 
but as time goes on and conditions affecting heavy guns and the communications 
in that part of Spain alter, a scheme of this kind gets obsolete and has to give 
place to a new one. Anything that Colonel Ordofiez writes is worth studying, for 
he is one of the most prominent of the Spanish Artillery Officers and his name has 
been more than once brought by me before the readers of the “ Proceedings ”’ in 
connection with his works on Coast Defence and on the Ordofiez system of heavy 
ordnance which is that now adopted in a large degree by the Spanish Government. 
His present article which we are noticing commences with a description of the 
town of Algeciras, its resources as a commercial port, its strategical position with 
reference to Gibraltar, ete. He then describes Gibraltar minutely and deals with its 
defences and armament. He recognizes its great importance to England and 
scouts the idea, which he hears frequently ventilated, that to fortify the positions 
which dominate Gibraltar would be an unfriendly act to Great Britain. He deals 
* Colonel Ordofiez has lately volunteered for service in Cuba where he. arrived in January, 1896. 
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