*.?s'^-.,- CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF R.H. Thurston Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030764355 Cornell Unlverslly Library UF800 .T29 The story of the guns olin 3 1924 030 764 355 THE STORY OF THE GUNS. LONDON PRINTBD BY S POTi;iS W OODE AND CO. NBW-STItEKT SQUAKE THE STOEY OF THE GUNS. SIR J. EMEESON TENNENT, K.C.S., LL.D., P.R.S., &c. LONDON: LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBEKTS, & GREEN. 1864. PREFACE. TT was my fortune at an early age to hold a commis- -■- sion as an officer of artillery in a foreign service, during a time of war. It was in the ' pre-scientific period,' and imder circumstances which, however ad- vantageous for observing the destructive powers of ordnance both by land and sea, were little favourable to the study of its construction. But they imparted an interest in the subject which recent occurrences have served to revive. In the great controversy, which for the last few years has attracted attention to the guns of rival inventors in this country, I have no pretension to interfere either as a military commentator or an amateur theorist. But in addition to the inventors who are to produce the new artillery, and the naval and military service who are to use it, there is a third party interested in the investigation; — the nation at large, who look to acquire an effective armament in return for the expenditure incurred. As one of the latter I enquired without success for any published state- Ti FBEFACE. ment, calculated to give in the order of time and occurrence a consecutive memoir of what has taken place since the war in the Crimea, in connection with the improvement of rifled arms. Finding that none such existed, I have compiled the present volume, in the hope to supply the want, so far as concerns the progress made in England — what has been done else- where is beyond the scope of my undertaking. In addition to personal observation of the results of experiments with artillery, my information has been drawn from such records as are accessible to the public : papers laid before Parliament, evidence taken by suc- cessive Committees of the House of Commons, dis- cussions in the theatres of scientific institutions, addresses delivered to large assemblies on special occa- sions, reviews and periodicals, reports of the press upon the marvellous powers of the new ordnance as displayed from time to time at various points of the coast, and the comments of writers devoted exclusively to me- chanical science in its application to the art of war. From these and similar sources it has been my aim to collect such materials as are calculated to disclose the former state of things that rendered the demand for improvement imperative, and to exhibit at each stage the advance made by successive inventors, all con- tributing to bring the question to that point in which it now awaits solution. One series of topics I have scrupulously shunned, FEKFACE. Tii beyond the merest mention (when such was unavoidable) that such points had been mooted ; I mean the never- ending and apparently inscrutable claims of inventors to priority of discovery. I have found throughout the course of this enquiry, that with a curiously infeli- citous uniformity, there is not a single feature in any one of the recently patented improvements in gunnery — from the metal of which a cannon is made to the form of the bore and the configuration of the projectile — -that has not been the object of contested claims and the source of vituperative animosity. Were we to credit the open assaults and the secret imputations, not on one only, but apparently on almost all the eminent engineers at present engaged in the study of rifled arms, the other- wise inadmissible conclusion would be inevitable, that the most exalted men in this important department must be included in Pope's estimate of Bacon, as The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind. I have passed by such discussions, not from any disrespect to the distinguished individuals whom they concern, but from a conviction that the conclusions, to whichever side they may lean, can have no practical weight as regards the momentous decision which the country is now called upon to make. Such claims honourably adjusted will form brilliant epochs in the biography of science, but as personal incidents or chro- nological disquisitions they cannot with propriety be Tiii PBEF^CE. permitted to divert the attention of the nation from the paramount object of acquiring for the equipment of its forces the arms most conducive to security in peace, and to supremacy in war. J. EMEESON TENNENT. London: Nov. 2, 1863. CONTENTS. PART I. THE RIFLED MUSKET. CHAPTER I. ' BROWN BESS.' PACE Early patents for fire-arms ... . . .3 Little improvement between tHe battles of Eamilies and Waterloo . 4 Apathy in other countries . . . . ib. ' Brown Bess ' falls into disrepute ... 5 Waste of ammunition in former wars .... The actual performance of the old musket tested in 1838 and 1852 Improvement of the rifle equivalent to an addition to the army Defects of the old ordnance . . .9 Its use in conflicts at sea ... . .10 Error as to the Duke of Wellington's supposed resistance to im- provement . . . , . . . 11 His real policy and its motives . . . . . ib. Napoleon III. on the evils of military routine (note) . . ib. Consequences of the hasty adoption of incomplete systems . 12 State of fire-arms in the Russian and Indian wars . . 14 CHAPTER II. IMPROVEMENT BEGINS — LORD HAKDINGE AND ME. WHITWOHTH. Lord Hardinge's measures for improving the rifled musket . 15 The Delvigne rifle in France ...... .16 X CONTENTS. PAGE The Carabine a tiffe '■° The Mini^ baU . 17 The Enfield buUet . 19 The origin of the Enfield rifle • 20 Original difficulty of producing it . • "^ Lord Hardinge consults Mr. Whitworth ... .22 Mr. "Whitworth's reputation as a mechanical engineer 23 His engine tools **• Perfect production of true plane surfaces 24 Measuring to one millionth of an inch . 26 Uses of such accurate machines . 26 The Whitworth system of screw threads (note) 28 Mr. Whitworth was not a gun-maker . . . .29 Declines to supply machinery for Enfield without previous experi- ments .... . 30 Offers his services gratuitously to the Government . 32 The rifle-gaUery built at Manchester . . 34 CHAPTEE III. THE ' SECRET ' DISCOVERED THE WHITWORTH RIFLE. Mr. Whitworth's first idea of a rifled cannon . 36 His model of a section gim . 37 The origin of his system of polygonal rifling . ih. The best form of projectile . , 38 The theory of ' rifling ' explained 39 Effects of rapid rotation 40 The proper form of rifling 42 A polygon superior to a grooved barrel . . ib. The mechanical advantages of a hexagon . . .43 The Whitworth bullet fitted to the bore of the gun 46 Polygonal rifling the least liable to wear by friction . 47 ' Stripping ' and 'jamming "... . 48 ' Difference gauges ' for gun-makers (note) Polygonal rifling no new discovery Mr. Brunei's rifled musket in 1853 The 'secret' disclosed Previous experiments of General Jacob in India . . ' . . jj. Diameter of bore in the Enfleld and Whitworth rifles . . 62 Eapidity of twist in the barrel . .53 Effect of ' increasing pitch ' . 5-4 CON'TENTS. PAGE PART II. EIFLED ORDNANCE. The cartridge for the Whitworth fowling-piece . . 56 The rifling of the musket equally applicable to heavy ordnance . 57 Mr. Whitworth pierces iron with the new projectile . . ih. Results obtained by the Whitworth rifle ... .58 Its performance excels that of the Enfield . . . a. Its accuracy, range, and low trajectory . . . 69 In France it beats the Mini^ rifle . . ' . .60 Committee appointed to test its merits in 1857 ib. Opinion of General Hay . ,61 Fouling corrected . . .63 The Queen fires the Whitworth rifle at Wimbledon in 1860 64 Delay in taking it into the service . .... 65 Eeport of the Ordnance Select Committee on rifled arms in 1863 66 Comparative cost of the Whitworth and Enfield muskets 67 The former declared superior 68 CHAPTER I. RIFLED C.\NNON CAST-IEON AND "WROUGHT- IKON GUNS. The improvements of the musket lead to that of artillery 73 Experience of the French in Algeria 74 The first rified cannon — the Lancaster gun and the canons rai/ies 75 Original attempts on the continent 76 The Wahrendorf gun tried in Algeria . ib. The artiUery of Europe reconstructed . . 77 Commander Scott on the rified guns of Europe (note) . ib. Austria — Russia — Sweden — Holland — Spain — Italy — Portugal — Switzerland — Prussia — Belgium — America . ib. Effect of the invention of gunpowder on the skill of the soldier 78 Efficacy of the rifled musket fatal to the ascendancy of artillery . 79 Defects of the old ordnance ... . . 80 The Lancaster gun — cause of its bad success . . 81 Guns of Mr. Bashley Britten, Mr. Lynall Thomas and Mr. Jeffery . 82 xii CONTENTS. PAGE Grans of Mr. Hadden and Commander Scott, E.N . • .83 Unsuccessful attempt to rifle the old cast-iron guns 85 The beau ideal of a perfect gun . . .86 Insuificiency of cast iron ... .87 The American attempts to cure this . • 88 Professor Barlow's experiments ... .89 Professor TreadweE's plan of outer hoops ih. Captain Blakely's gun ..... • 90 His claim to the invention of 'welded coil ' {note) 91 Wrought iron — its imperfections . . 93 The Horsfall gun — its prodigious power . 94 Built-up guns . . . . . 96 CHAPTER II. THE ARMSTRONG GUN. Sir William G. Armstrong^-his history . 97 His early taste for engineering . . gg His hydraulic engines ... . , .99 His hydro-electric machine j^OO His first rifled gun, 1854 . . . j^Ol Six guns made for the Minister of War 102 Their success . j03 His lead-coated projectiles . 104 Welded-coil adopted for his ordnance . . 105 Process of making it deserihed . . lOg His system of breech-loading ajid vent-pieces IO7 Advantages and disadvantages of breech-loading . no The rifling of the Armstrong gun . . 112 The Armstrong segment shell . jj^ Practical effects of high rotation ... ij Destructive power of the segment shell . Hg The carriage of the Armstrong gun . ^ iig The recoil slide .. Superior workmanship of the Armstrong gun . 117 ^' -. „ . . ib . 118 Its extraordinary performance Its accuracy of fire CONTENTS. CHAPTER III, THE WHITWORTH GUN — ADOPTION OF THE ARMSTRONG GUN BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT. PAGE Uneasy feeling at the close of the Crimean War . • .123 Unprepared state of the country to repel invasion . ib. Warning of the Duke of Wellington . . . ib. Desire of General Peel for the improvement of artillery . 126 Report of Colonel Lefroy on rifled cannon . . . ib. Appointment of a committee in 1858 . . . .126 Their report in favour of the Armstrong gun . . .129 Its introduction into the service . .• . ib. Complaints of Mr. Whitvp-orth of the inadequacy of the trial . 130 Neglect of the committee to visit his works . . . .131 Explanation of the committee as to this omission (note) . . ib. General Peel adopts the Armstrong field-guns only . . 133 Sir William Armstrong gives his patents to the nation . . .134 His expenditure refunded by the Treasury ib. Sis n'ppymtiaent as ' Engineer to the War Department' . 136 His functions . ib. His subsequent appointment of ' Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factory at Woolwich' . ... . . 137 Contract with the Elswick Company . . . 138 This arrangement objectionable ib. Government guarantee against loss to the Elswick Company 139 Scruples of the Earl of Derby as to this arrangement . . ib. Objections of Sir James R. Graham, M.P 140 Report of the Committee of the House of Commons tm Military Organisation in 1860 .... ... 141 Its strictures on the anomalous position of Sir W. Armstrong . ib. The Armstrong 40-pounder adopted by the navy . . . 142 CHAPTER IV. SIR WILLIAM Armstrong's official relation to the GOVERNMENT. Prejudicial influences of the arrangement ... . 144 It illustrates the wisdom of the Duke of Wellington's objection to the adoption of incomplete inventions . . . . 14.5 xiv CONTENTS. PAGE Lord Herbert's testimony to the propriety of General Peel's policy . 145 Urgent circumstances in justification of the late arrangement . ib. Objections to the adoption of an imperfect system .... 147 Inconvenience to the military service of frequent alterations . .148 Sir WiUiam Armstrong's position a discouragement to other in- ventors . ... .... 149 Embarrassment, supposing a better gun to be produced in competition with the Armstrong . . ... 151 Injustice to private individuals, working at their own cost . . 153 No instance of partiality imputable to Sir William Armstrong . ib. His conduct eulogised by the War Department . . .154 False position of the Government in being made a partisan with any one inventor .... . . ib. Injustice to Mr. Whitworth : evidence of Colonel Lefroy and Colonel Gardner .... . . . . ib. Commercially, Sir William Armstrong's appointment injudicious . 156 Doubts as to the necessity for specially employing the Elswick Company . . . . . . ib. No private manufacture of guns could compete with the Elswick monopoly and guarantee . . 158 The Armstrong gun might have been taken into the service, inde- pendently of Sir William's appointment . . . 159 Inconvenience of employing Sir William Armstrong to manufacture . the gun of one of his rivals . . 160 Cost entailed by the arrangement of 1869 . . . .161 Sums paid to the Elswick Company, compared with the cost of the articles at Woolwich . ... ib. CHAPTER V. THE CONTEST. Neglect of the committee to communicate the result of their decision to Mr. Whitworth . ... Circumstances which broke off his communications with the War 163 Office . . j6g Mr. Whitworth rifles cast-iron guns at the request of the Govern- ment ib. Bursting of the 68-pounder in 1859 . . jgy General Peel discontinues further experiments with guns rifled on Mr. Whitworth's principle _ ,-^ The time and terms of this order to be regretted ib CONTE]!>'TS. IT PASE Mr. "Wtitworth. becomes a mamifaeturer of guns .... 168 The Eev. Sydney Smith's eulogium of perseverance . . . 169 Difiienlties connected with military routine and esprit de corps . ib. These prejudicial to civilians 170 The army delighted with the new iield-piece .... 172 The nation charmed with the Armstrong gun . . . ib. Still doubts entertained on the subject 173 The scientific press dissentient ib. The decision of the committee only the beginning of the contest . 174 Mr. Whitworth had no change to make in his gun . . . ib. His chief anxiety to discover a sufficiently strong metal for heavy ordnance ........... ib. Illustration of the rending force of gunpowder {note) . . . 175 Homogeneous iron — how prepared 177 Its great tenacity and strength ....... 178 Its suitability questioned by Sir W. Armstrong .... 179 Up to the present no metal discovered entirely satisfactory . . 180 The ' cemetery ' for burst guns at Woolwich ib. Mode of building up the Whitworth gun . . . . . ib. Section of a 70-pounder Whitworth .... 181 Rifling in the Whitworth cannon the same as in the musket . . ih. Rifling from end to end and its advantages . . . . . ib. Power of flring bolts of any length . . . . . .183 The Whitworth projectiles ib. Their small cost 184 Alleged injury to the gun from friction incorrect . . . 185 Remarkable effect of the ' tapered ' ^nd • 186 Explanation of its increased flight . . . . . . . ib. 'Windage,' how provided for . . . . . . .188 Gun adapted for flring shell as well as shot ... . ib. Breech-loading apparatus 189 The lubricating wad 191 Renewed communications with the Government .... 1:92 Southport and the sand formations of that coast .... 193 The trial of the new guns 194 The range of the 12-pounder : the greatest known up to that time . 1'95 A range of sj'a; mife obtained since ...... 196 The importance of range questioned ...... 198 Its real signiflcanee 19;9 The Whitworth 80-pounder at Southport ib. Deflection of projectiles caused by the vrind («oie) . . . 200 Ricochet firing with elongated projectiles 201 xvi CONTENTS. PAGE Story of the soldiers at Burgos (note) 201 The Times' account of the Southport experiments .... 203 The Whitworth ' principle ' of rifling rehabilitated by them . . ib. Fresh trials between the Armstrong and Whitworth guns resolved on . . . . .... 204 Causes of their abandonment ....... 205 History of the Southport 80-pounder, and its fate .... 206 Sir "William Armstrong's operations at Woolwich and Elswick . 211 His heavy guns taken into the service without trial . . . ib. Pirst symptoms of distrust — objections found to breech-loading . 212 Mishaps with the ' vent-pieces ' . . .... 214 The Armstrong ' shunt ' gun ....... 216 Uneasy feeling in the navy .... . . . ib. New trials called for by the press 217 PART III. THE lEON NAVY. CHAPTER I. THE NATION RESOLVE TO CONSTRUCT A NAVT OF IRON. Alarm felt for wooden ships from rifled guns . Sir WiUiam Armstrong's letter of January 1857 Apprehension excited by shell Various shells in use in the navy . Conflict between the ' Merrimac ' and ' Congress ' Horrible effect of shell on wooden ships General Paixhans recommends iron sheathing Iron ships attempted in America in 1846 Tried in England without success . First experiments on iron plate at Portsmouth in 1854 France constructs iron-clad gun-boats The ' Gloire ' and the ' Normandie ' in 1857 The first armour-clad ships of war in England 221 222 224 225 ib. 226 227 ib. 228 a. 229 ib. 230 CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. IRON SHIPS DEFY ARTILLERY. First experiments in 1856 against the iron-dad gun-boat ' Trusty Special Committee on Iron Mate appointed Error in keeping official experiments secret . Iron plates resist cast-iron shot ..... Trial of the Armstrong gun against the 'Trusty' in 1859 The ship resists the gun ...... The Armstrong 80-pounder fails to overcome the iron-plate Four and half inches of iron plate pronounced impregnable Phenomena exhibited during these experiments . > Facts ascertained as to the resistance of iron . Soft iron better than steel for armour-plate Ultimate destruction of iron by repeated blows of shot . Down to 1862 iron believed to be unassailable by shot . Opinion of Mr. Scott EusseU ... Opinion of Sir William Armstrong in 1861, that no shell penetrate iron-plate . ... Opinion of Captain Hewlett, E.N"., of the ' Excellent ' . could PAGE 231 . 232 . 233 . ib. . 234 . 235 . ib. . 236 . ib. . 237 . ib. . 238 . 239 . 240 241 ib. CHAPTER III. WHITWORTH PROJECTILES PENETRATE ARMOUR-CLAD SHIPS. Opinion of Sir Howard Douglas that artillery would eventually overcome iron-plate ...... Hitherto the failure to penetrate iron had been chiefly attributa,ble to the projectiles tried ..... The projectile more important than the gun . Material as essential as form ..... Difficulties of arguing from small results to greater Whitworth jlatfronted projectile penetrates iron-plate Its properties and their nature accounted for . The flat-fronted shot penetrates under water . It pierces iron at an angle of 50° 243 244 245 246 247 249 250 251 252 Mr. Whitworth rifles, a cast-iron 68-pounder for the Government 253 And pierces four inches of iron with his new projectile . . . 264 Bursting of the gun . ... His connection with the Government suddenly severed , . . 255 a 2 xTiii CONTENTS. PASS His principle of rifling unaltered since 256 He commences to manufacture cannon on his own account . 257 He adopts 'homogeneous iron' for Ms own guns .... 259 Sir William Armstrong uses the flat-fronted projectile with success ib. The Southport 80-pounder made by Mr. Whitworth tried against the 'Trusty' 260 It penetrates andwoTild have sunk her 261 Extraordinary effects of the shot 262 Heat and flame generated by the blow ib. The dynamical theory of heat 263 The experiments of Mr. Joule and Dr. Mayer {note) . . . ib. Artillery resumes its supremacy orer ships 265 Mr. Whitworth's opinion as to iron-clad vessels . . ib. Sir William Armstrong's Tiew of the penetrative power of projec- tiles 267 Mr. Fairbaim's experiments on the compressibility of iron projec- tiles (note) 268 Although shot could penetrate iron, ships stiU safe from shell 271 CHAPTEE rv. THE VTHITWOETH SHELLS PEHETEATE ARMOUR-PLATE. Experiments on armour-plate in France ..... 272 France suspends the building of iron ships in consequence . ib. Discussion as to the comparative advantages of bruising and pene- tration ••■•■... 273 Proposal to return to the old smooth-bore gun for the navy . 274 The initial velocity of the smooth bore erroneously thought greater than that of the rifled gun . ... 275 The fallacy of thj? demonstrated .... 276 Opinion of the Duke of Somerset, since corrected by him (note) . ib Letter of Mr. Whitworth to the 'Times' . . '281 Lord Palraerston visits Shoeburyness, and orders a large Whitworth gun for experiments 284 Circumstance of the making of the gun at Woolwich (note) '. 285 The Whitworth shell described ... It explodes without a fuse .... Expedient to delay the explosion . Shell from the Whitworth 12-pounder for the flrst'time' penetrates iron-plate two inches thick . . . „„„ A Whitworth 70-pounder sends shell through four inches of iron 289 286 ib. ib. CONTENTS. A 129-poiind shell penetrates armour-plate . The problem solved .... Extraordinary appearance of the target .... Opinion of the ' Times ' (jiote) Opinion of the ' Satm-day Eeview ' . . . . Discussion renewed as to the damage done by penetrating w bruising . . Farther trials called for Eeuewed trials of the Whitworth gun, 1862 . The scene described, at Shoeburyuess .... A shell 151 lbs. weight penetrates the ' Warrior ' target Navez' electric apparatus to measure velocity (note) Farther experiments and like results Effects of the Are Evidence of destruction Fortification by land, how affected by these results Chalmers' target ithout PAGE . 291 . 292 . 293 . 293 . 294 295 296 297 298 299 ib. ih. 300 301 305 306 CONCLUSION. THE PRESENT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. The choice of the Armstrong field-gun in 1858 justified by the facts 309 Questionable results of Sir William Armstrong's appointment at Woolwich 310 The military character indisposed to admit error . . . ib. Difficulty created by Sir William Armstrong's relation to the Go- vernment ......... .311 Outlay incurred, two and a half millions sterling .... ih. Opinions that the Armstrong gun is still imperfect . .312 Mr. Anderson of Woolwich condemns the early Armstrong guns . ib. This expenditure on the gun of only one inventor .... 314 All other inventions discouraged . . . . . . ib. Exclusion of civilians and scientific men . ... 315 Approval of the proceedings of the /row Ptoe Committee . . 316 Want of scientific members in the committee of the War Office . 317 The experiment to admit them tried but discontinued . . 318 Unpopularity of the Ordnance Select Committee . . . 319 Evidence of the Duke of Somerset ib. XX CONTENTS. PAS'S Opinion of the armi/ as to the Armatvong gnn . . • .320 Colonel Gardner and Colonel Bingham 321 General Sir Eiehard Dacres ^23 The Duke of Cambridge . . • ■ . . 323 Opinion of the navy as to tie Armstrong gun . . • 324 Sir William Wiseman, Bart. E.N 325 Captain Hewett, K.N Captain Cooper Coles, II.N. . . 326 The heaTy Armstrong guns objected to for broadsides . . 327 Accidents from vent-pieces ....... ^o. The old 68-pounder smooth bore preferred to the Armstrong rifled 110-pounder . . 328 The House of Commons' Committee report in favour of the old 68- pounder as against iron plate . . . . 329 This conclusion erroneous ... ... ib. Sir William Armstrong's defence of his gun . . . .333 Would prefer steel as the material . . . . ih. But uses welded coil in the meantime till the other can be procured 334 Breech-loading not essential to his ' system ' ... 335 His system mainly consists in his application of welded coil . . 336 Not injured by rough handling in war 337 His objections to the Whitworth rifling ... . ih. States that there is no one gun ' in the service ' able to pierce the ' Warrior ' target . 338 Reasons why one has not yet been made by himself . . ib. Uneasy feeling in the navy . . . . . 339 Committee of the House of Commons recommend immediate trials of other guns, in competition with the Armstrong- . . . 340 To these trials scientific men must be admitted . . . 341 Past expenditure to be no obstacle . , . . . ih. Pending trials between the Armstrong and Whitworth guns only . 342 This pot sufficient ... ..... «A. A perfect gun not unattainable . . ... 343 Till it is acquired all inventors should be encouraged to compete . ih. LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. Iron target destroyed by the Whitworth and Horsfall guns The carabine a tige The Mini^ ball . The Mini^ ball distorted The Enfield bullet Section of the Enfield rifle Section of the Whitworth rifle Smooth bore for a spherical projectile of 530 grains Oval rifle-bore for an elongated projectile of 530 grains Triangular rifle-bore, for a projectile of 530 grains Square rifle-bore for a projectile of 530 grains Hexagonal rifle-bore for a projectile of 530 grains . Bullet for the Whitworth rifle . . . " Cartridge for the Whitworth rifled fowling-piece . Target and flgure of merit of the Enfield and Whitworth rifles in 1857 to face Section of Mr. Bashley Britten's rifled gun Section of Mr. Xynall Thomas's rifled gun Section of Mr. Jeffery's rifled gun Section of Mr. Hadden's rifled gun Section of Captain Scott's, E.N., rifled gun . Section of Sir WiUiam Armstrong's rifled gun The Armstrong gun viewed from the rear Section of the Armstrong gun Eifling of the Armstrong nine-pounder Mr. Whitworth's gun ... . . to face Section of the Whitworth gun . . .... 16 17 18 19 42 43 ib. 44 45 48 56 58 82 ib. ib. 83 108 109 112 181 182 xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAOB Experimental projectiles fired from the same Whitworth gun . .184 Cylindrical and Tapered Whit worth projectiles . . . .187 The first Whitworth steel projectile which penetrated iron plate . 249 Diagram of a crushed cast-iron bolt 269 Broken cast-iron shot 270 The Whifworth shell . 287 Whitworth flat-fronted projectile fired against the ' Warrior ' target tofcxe 291 PART I. THE EIFLED MUSKET. CHAPTEE I. ' BEOTTN BESS.' WITHIN the ten years that have elapsed since the outburst of the war in the Crimea, the im- provements and discoveries in the construction of fire- arms and projectiles have exceeded, both in number and importance, all that occurred since the reign of Henry VIII. From the year 1628, when Arnold Eotsipen obtained from Charles I. letters-patent for ' a new waye or meanes of makeinge gonnes, whereof a patteme and proofe was shewn to the King's selfe,' down to the end of 1852, not more than three hundred patents had been issued for inventions; whereas more than double that number were granted within the next seven years.' On looking now at the specimens of early small arms and artillery preserved in museums and arsenals, it is surprising how little change has been undergone, either by ordnance or musketry, during that long period of comparative inaction. Except in the superior composition of the metal, cannon cast in the reigns of '■ Abridgments of the Specifications relating to Fire-arms, &e. Printed by order of the Commissioners of Patents, 1859, p. 1. E 2 4 APATHY IN ENGLAND. [Part 1. the Georges exhibited little alteration or improvement beyond their condition in the time of Elizabeth. The muskets borne by our soldiers in the Peninsula and at "Waterloo differed in no essential particular from those with which their ancestors fought at Blenheim and Eamilies; and the substitution of the percussion- cap for a flint-lock took place at a still later period. Military weapons were allowed to retain all their primi- tive rudeness, whilst the utmost care and ingenuity were exerted to bring sporting guns to perfection. Money and skill were bestowed without stint on a rifle to bring down a deer ; or on a fowling-piece with which a pheasant was to be shot; but any weapon, however clumsy, was thought sufiiciently good when the issue of a battle or the fate of an empire was in the balance.' Nor was this display of apathy confined to England alone. Almost every other nation in Europe concurred in manifesting the same contented indifference. Mar- mont, to the close of his life, upheld the old musket as the most formidable and effective of all possible weapons; and Napoleon withdrew the rifle from the Imperial troops, to whom it had been partially issued during the wars of the Eepublic : nor was it restored to the French armies till after the invasion of Algeria, in 1830, when it was adopted for the equipment of the Chasseurs d'Orleans.^ Prior to that time, however, some perception of the superiority of the rifle had ' Edinburgh Review, 1859, p. 515. It used to be a simile applied by gamekeRpers to a bad fowling-piece', ' Wliy, sir, she be of no more use nor a soger's musket.' — Examiner, Nov. 8, 1862. ^ Delvione, Notice. Historique des Armcs Bayees, p. 57. Chap. /.] BROWN BESS IN DISREPUTE. 6 begun to be felt in Great Britain, after its efficiency had been witnessed in the hands of the Americans, whose marksmen were indebted to its skilful use for their advantages over ourselves ; as well as for sub- sequent successes in their expeditions against the Mexicans. Gradually, the antiquated musket came to be re- garded with distrust. It was so incorrectly bored, and the windage so great ' that the bullets flew wild as they left the barrel. ' Brown Bess,' from being the boast became the bye-word of the British army. Those who had previously extolled her sturdy endurance began to 'gird at' her infirmities; and disrespectful allusions were made to illustrate her errors and decrepitude. Although ofiScially said to be effective at a range of 200 yards, it was the working rule of the soldier to reserve his shot till he saw the whites of his enemy^s eyes, and even then it was said that, before he could bring down his man, he must fire a full weight of his body in lead. It has been questioned whether, without the inven- tion of the bayonet, the musket of the last century would have permanently, superseded the crossbow of the middle ages. And it admits of no doubt that, often in our own times, the consciousness of the ' ' Windage ' is the difference between the diameter of the shot and the bore of the piece from which it is fired, owing to which an imoccu- pied space is left between the projectile and the inner circumference of the gun. In practice the effect of windage in smooth bore pieces is to force the ballagainst one side of the barrel, whence itrebounds against the other, making a zigzag motion in its exit, which is fatal to its steady flight. 6 WASTE OF AMMUNITION. [Part L defects of the firelock impelled our men to resort to the strong and certain thrust of the bayonet, rather than to rely for their safety on the chance performances of the clumsy and capricious ' Brown Bess.' Nor was there wanting authoritative testimony to sustain this mistrust. At the battle of Salamanca only 8,000 men were put hors de combat, although 3,500,000 cartridges were fired, together with 6,000 cannon balls, (besides which there were charges both of cavalry and the line ;) so that, as regards the line, only one shot in 437 took effect. 'An oflScer engaged at Waterloo says that he could not see more than three or four saddles emptied by the fire of one side of a square of British infantry upon a body of French cavalry close to them ; yet Bonaparte complimented our men on the superior steadiness of their aim. During the Continental cam- paigns, he and his marshals held that 450 yards was a safe distance from all small arms, the rifle included.' ' Colonel Wilford, in the course of a lecture delivered at the United Service Institution, in London, in November 1859, stated that during the Caffre War 80,000 car- tridges were fired in a single engagement, in which only twenty-five of the enemy fell. An engineer ofiicer, who in one of the great battles of the last war had an opportunity of witnessing the effect of musketry upon cavalry charging a square, states that a volley at thirty paces brought down only three men. The French admit that during the Crimean war they fired away upwards of 25,000,000 cartridges, and ' Spectator, March 19, 1859. CUp. /.] OLD MUSKET TESTED. 7 certainly did not hit 25,000 men nor kill one-half that number by musketry-fire. > 'We believe,' says the Times,'' writing about that period, that ' the calculation used to be that one bullet in 250 carried death ; and that estimate is probably not far- from the truth.' As early as the year 1838 a series of experiments were undertaken by the officers of the Royal Engineers at Chatham, to ascertain what the properties of the service musket really were. The ' result,' says the Edinburgh Revieiu, ' was certainly most amusing. The target first employed was 3 feet wide and 11 feet 6 inches high, which was struck by about three-fourths the balls at 150 yards, fired with full charges — with reduced charges only above one-half hit. Above this distance, the difficulty of hitting was so great, that the width of the target had to be increased to six feet ; and, at 250 yards, of ten shots fired with full charges, not one hit the target : at 300 yards shot after shot was fired with- out one hitting the object aimed at, or its whereabouts being ascertained. After various expedients in vain resorted to to hit such an object at such a range, the officers gave it up in despair ; and proceeded to calculate a table of " instructions for soldiers," in firing with the musket, some of which will appear strange at the present day. The soldier was told, in firing at a man, at 600 yards, to fire 130 feet above him! or in other words, if you wish to hit a church-door aim at the weather-cock. But considering the lateral deviation, the chances were ' Edinburgh Eeviiw, April 1859, p. 525. 2 Times, April 24, 1857. 1 8 DANGER TO GUNNERS. [Parti. ' certainly two to one that you would miss the church altogether." Not very long ago, a well-trained marksman, pro- vided with an old regulation musket, was placed to fire at a target 18 feet square from a distance of 300 yards, and found that he could not put even into that spacious area one bullet out of twenty. At 200 yards his success was not greater, and yet the fire-arm thus tested was the regular weapon of the British soldier, so late as the year 1852. Although it anticipates, to some extent, the thread of the following narrative, I may be permitted here to notice, that on the occasion on which this exposure of the old pattern musket was made, the improved rifle which had then recently been issued was brought forward, under precisely the same circumstances, and scarcely a shot missed the target ; demonstrating, that if a soldier can be enabled to hit uniformly, where he hit but once out of twenty times before, his increased value is equiva- lent to an addition to the numbers of the army in precisely that proportion. Not only so, but the distance at which the new weapon could kill having been in- creased from one or two hundred yards to fourteen hundred, or more, it came to be felt, that imless artillery could be improved in the same ratio as the rifle, the old ordnance would be rendered useless, as gunners would be picked off and killed before their cannon could be brought within range. Whether it was ascribable to the form of the bore and ' Edinburgh Review, April 1859, p. 520. Chap. /.] DIFFICULTY OF AIM. 9 the shot, to windage, to defects of construction, or to a combination of all — ordTiance both for field and sea service was, down to a very recent period, almost as in- effective as the musket of the infantry. The windage allowed was excessive; the charge of powder conse- quently large; and the spherical shot, which by its gravity fell to the lower side of the piece, being started with its centre eccentric to the bore, bounded irregu- larly along the barrel (causing serious wear by inden- tation) and issued from the muzzle sometimes high, sometimes low, and sometimes on one side, but seldom or never in a line with the axis of the gun. Thus, accuracy of firing was and is, in similar pieces, almost impossible to be attained. Again, the round shot on issuing from the gun pre- sents so large a diameter to the action of the air that its speed is soon retarded, and the force of the wind acting on it laterally, its course becomes deflected and uncertain. "When Dr. Hutton was conducting his ex- periments on atmospheric resistance to projectiles, at a reach of the Thames adjacent to Woolwich, he found that, in order to hit a target at the distance of a mile, it was necessary to point the gun 400 yards to the right or left, according to the direction and force of the wind. In siege operations and in naval warfare, the ammu- nition wasted was far in excess of the injury done to the enemy ; so much so, that after the fall of Sebastopol, the surface of the plateau in the viciaity of the captured citadel was strewn with balls as with the products of a 10 NAVAL GUNS. [Parti. mine of ready-wrought iron.' Against stone- works and fortresses like Syeaborg and Cronstadt the assault of guns such as were then in use was instinctively felt to be powerless ; and the fate of actions at sea — even those most formidably contested— was frequently decided less by the destructive power of artillery than by fierce hand-to-hand struggles between boarding parties and the crew. To drive a projectile into, if not through, an enemy's ship, has at all times been esteemed the first essential of a, naval gun;^ but so defective was our ordnance in penetrative power, that attention was mainly directed to the means of increasing the damage done by bruising, and the wide dispersion of splinters. Hence conflicts were prolonged with increased mutilation and slaughter, instead of beiog early and decisively determined by displays of irresistible might ; and in renowned engage- ments, such as that between the Chesapeake and the Shannon, the vast majority of the missiles discharged — spherical shot as well as bar-shot and chain — were found imbedded in the timbers, whilst those that pene- trated the ship were comparatively few. So far as regards the army, it has been usual to ascribe the long endurance of the old state of things to the alleged obstinacy of the Duke of Wellington, who ' A friend of mine who was present during the siege wi-ote to me as follows : — 'I hardly exaggerate in saying that over some dozen acres a smart fellow might have crossed every yard of ground upon iron, without laying a foot on the earth. The cannon shot were thick in some places, and scattered in others, but the coup d'ceU was indescribable ! ' ' Sir HowABD DouHLAs 07i Naval Gunnery, 108, p. 77. Chap. /.] DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 11 is always represented as having been hostile to change in matters of military equipment, and wilfully blind to the defects of the old musket. Earl Grey when examined before a committee of the House of Com- mons 'on Military Organisation' in 1860, said it was 'notorious to all the world, that the Duke objected in the strongest manner to giving up the old musket.' ' Tardy justice has been accorded to his Grrace in this particular. So far from being opposed to improving the armament of troops, his personal friend and biogra- pher, the Chaplain-General of the Forces, has placed on record that the Duke of Wellington was often heard to say that, ' looking to the amount of mechanical skill in the country, and the numerical weakness of our army as compared with those of the great continental powers, British troops ought to be the best armed sol- diers in Europe.'^ Whilst duly aware of the imperfections both of small arms and ordnance, the Duke was equally competent to form a correct estimate of the difificulties which beset their removal ; but amongst these he did not for a moment admit the force of military routine, which, next to rash innovation. Napoleon III. has pro- nounced to be the most redoubtable enemy to all im- provement,^ regarding errors as sacred only because they are old. ' Evidence, 5368, p. 389. ' Glbig's Life of the Duke of Wellingtoti, p. 548. ^ 'La routine amoiireuse des vieilles pratiques a conserve pendant des sifecles les usages les plus stupides. ... La routine conserve scru- puleusement comnie un depot sacr^ les vieiUes erreurs; maiselle s' oppose 12 THE DUKE'S POLICY. [Part I. The obstructions apparent to the Duke of Welling- ton were such as his experience had taught him to discern. As First Minister of the Crown, he had shown himself a rigid economist by the largest possible reduc- tions in every branch of the public expenditure ; ' and hence he felt the responsibility of adopting proposed additions to military expenditure. But besides this, his observation as a practical administrator, both in the field and in the cabinet — not only as Commander- in-Chief but as Master-G-eneral of the Ordnance — had taught him the wholesome necessity of caution in in- troducing into the service, as ostensible amendments, inventions in fire-arms which were in reality only the early and immature germs of exjpefvments still in- complete. Without discountenancing science, or dis- couraging ingenuity, his habit in relation to alleged improvements was to wait till scientific investigation had demonstrated the principle to be true, and till practical experience had proved their construction to be sound. 'He considered it necessary,' said Lord Herbert, 'that encore de toiites ses forces aux amaiorations les plus legitimes et les plus ^videntes.'— Dm Passe et de I'Avenir de VArtillerie, CEuvres de Napoleon III, tome iv»«, Avant-propos, pp. 15, 16, 17. ' ' There was nothing of which the Duke was more jealous than of proposals which involved, or threatened to involve, any addition to the cost of maintaining the army. His scruples on that head originated in two sources. As a minister and a statesman he was perhaps the most rigid economist of modern times. He effected larger reductions in the public expenditure during the brief period of his administration than had been effected before, or have been effected since, by any other head of the government, within the memory of man. Hence his common expression, " Depend upon it, gentlemen, the greatest enemies the ai-my has in this country are those who would add unnecessarily to its expense." '-Gleig's Life of the Buke of Wellington, p. 547. Chap. 7.] MINIE INTRODUCED. 13 those enquiries should be made before he gave to changes the sanction of his high authority.'' Proceed- ing on any other system, it is obvious that ia the great majority of cases the public money would have been squandered by the temporary adoption of novelties, which a very brief trial might have rendered it necessary to discard. The wisdom of the Duke of Wellington was displayed in prudently abstaining from regarding theo- ries as established so long as they are only rudimental ; or accepting results as demonstrated when the experi- ments on which they were dependent were still pre- liminary and inchoate. Although better qualified than any other authority of his time to appreciate the ex- ploits achieved by the old musket, the Duke, so far from being a partisan of ' Brown Bess,' gave his sanction to its supersession by the Minie rifle, in 1851. But before authorising its distribution to the service, he justified the measure in his own mind, not only by the example of the French and Belgian experiments, but by personal inspection of the ease with which the gun could be managed by the men, and the facility afforded by it for loading. It gave place a few years after to the Enfield ; and slight as was the superiority which the Minie, when first introduced, presented over the antiquated musket of the previous century, its partial introduction by the Duke of Wellington was the only improvement that up to that time had been made in the construction of small arms. ■ Committee of the House of Commons on Military Organisation, 1860; 6499, p. 450. 14 CRIMEAN WAR. [Fart I. In the two most formidable wars that have signalised the present decade ; that in which Eussia was repulsed in her attempted invasion of the Ottoman Empire, and that by which Bengal was rescued from the re- volted sepoys of India ; we had, in the latter instance, to face envenomed foes whom we ourselves trained to the use of arms, and who had learned from us all the deficiencies of the only weapons with which we had to encounter them; — and in the other, we had to con- front an enemy whose ambition was uniformly directed to render his armies the most formidable in Europe ; whilst by the association of our force with that of France we were brought into trying contrast with an ally whose pride and policy were equally involved in having arms as well as discipline brought to the high- est attainable perfection. Yet, notwithstanding the wish expressed by the Duke of Wellington, in 1852, that every soldier of the line should be armed with a rifle, it was recently stated in the House of Com- mons' (I know not how correctly) that one division, at least, of the British army in the Crimea was pro- vided with no better weapon than ' Brown Bess.' ^ • Lord EiCHO, June 6, 1861. ^ It is fair, however, ■ to state that the French army in the Crimea •were but indifferently proTided, for although the Chasseurs carried the carabine a tige (of which there is some notice in tlie next chapter), the infantry were armed with the smooth hore regulation musket. See Sir Howard Douglas on Naval Gunnery, 600, p. 571. 15 CHAPTER II. IMPKOVBMENT BEGINS — LORD HAEDINGE AND MR. WHITWOKTH. LORD HERBERT OF LEA has borne a generous testimony to the claims of Viscount Hardinge on the gratitude of England ' as the person to whom the army owes most, for the improvement of weapons of war, and for carrying out the changes with regard to the rifle with the greatest energy and determination.' ' Lord Hardinge became Master-G-eneral of the Ord- nance in 1852, and succeeded the Duke of Wellington as Commander-in-Chief at the close of the same year. Previous to his entrance upon these high offices, the career of improvement in France had begun, and numerous attempts had been made in this country to remedy the defects of the old musket; but Lord Hardinge, although not the first, had the good fortune to be the most successful in instituting a systematic and sustained effort for the adaptation of the rifle to the service of the army. The French, as already stated, had abandoned the use of the rifle at an early stage of the revolutionary war; and ' Evidence hefore the Committee of the House of Commons on Mili- tary Organisation, 6S0i, p. 457. 16 CARABINE A TIGE. [Part I. it was not till after the restoration of the dynasty that it was reintroduced. In 1826 Captain Delvigne proposed the system which has since borne his name, but which was only a modi- fication of the former rude plan of forcing the ball into the grooves of the barrel by smart blows of the ram- rod. In 1842 the 'Delvigne rifle' was superseded by the Carabine a tige of Colonel Thouvenin, in which, in order to impart rotation to the ball, a pillar was screwed into the breech, so as to leave surrounding space for the pow- der; and against the end of this 'tige' the bullet was flattened by the ramrod, ■ — I till its base became expanded, and be- ing forced into the grooves it assumed the form of the rifle barrel. One ad- vantage of this system was that the bullet, when resting on the top of the pillar, did not press upon the powder, or, as it is technically said, ' meal' it, when struck with the ramrod. To this M. Delvigne superadded the further improvement of substituting a projectile, the bottom of which was flat, the sides cylindrical, and the front terminated conically, somewhat resembling Sir Isaac Newton's ' solid of least resistance.' ' f 1 5) THE CARABINE A TIGE. ' Prinoipia, L. ii. Sohol. to Prop. 34. In the accompanying sketch taken from Sir Howard Douglas, Naval Gunnery, p. 137, the Delvigne Chap. 11.] MINIE SAI.L. 17 The Carabine a tige, furnished with Delvigne's pro- jectiles, was the arm supplied to the chasseurs d'Afrique in 1846, during the war in Algeria. But the 'pillar' was found liable to become bent ; and being otherwise objectionable, it was superseded by the introduction of the Minie ball, the peculiarity of which was that, being made smaller than the bore of the piece, it could be almost dropped loose into the barrel, and it contained in its base a conical recess, to receive the apex of a cup of iron, somewhat larger than the open- ing, into which it was to be driven by the explosion, and thus to effect at once its own expansion and rifling.' THE MINIE BALL.- Other countries were not less active than France. The Prussians attained some success in the attempt to load their rifles at the breech instead of the muzzle, and armed their troops with the ' ziindnadelgewehr,' which is discharged by passing a needle into the cartridge, so as to ignite percussion powder placed within. ball is seen at a, furnished witli a groove D near the base to admit of its attachment to the cartridge by means of a cord, e b represents the barrel; c the ' tige ' or pillar, screwed into the face of the breeeh-pin ; e the ramrod ; and fe the space round the pillar for containing the powder. ' The original contrivance of a self-expanding projectile is said to belong to Mr. Geeenee, who proposed a ball of this construction in 1836. See a, Paper on Projectiles, by F. A. Abel, Esq., Chemical Director of the War Department at "Woolwich, in the Practical Mechanics' Journal, 1862, p. 455. ^ This and the following engraving, p. 18, are copied from Scoffeen's work on Projectiles and Weapons of War, pp. 240, 241. 18 MIHIE BALL. ' [Part I. The Americans, too, had obtained celebrity from a rifle firing conical bullets or 'pickets' with such ac- curacy, that one instance was adduced in which ten consecutive shots at 220 yards were planted within a space no larger than a small playing card — a feat which up to that period was considered unequalled. Down, however, to the accession of Lord Hardinge to the Master-G-eneralship of the Ordnance, the only prac- tical improvement in England had been the partial in- troduction of the Minie bullet for the rifle, which took place when the Marquis of Anglesey, as Master-Greneral in 1851, ordered the issue of 28,000 Eegulation rifled muskets.' But the Minie ball, notwithstanding its superiority in many particulars, exhibited grave disadvantages; THE MINIE BALI, DISTORTED. its tendency to fouling was considerable — the dis- tended portions of the projectile sometimes detached themselves and clogged the grooves, rendering loading extremely difficult — and occasionally the iron cup, ' The dimensions of this Mini^ musket will give some idea of its cumbrous character: the barrel was 4 lbs. 10 oz. ; it had a bore of •702 in., with 4 rifled grooves, having one turn in 6 ft. 6 in. ; .and the buUet adapted to it weighed 680 grains. '■11] ENFIELD liULLF/r. 19 instead of merely expanding the lead, was driven com- pletely through the opposite extremity, converting the bullet into a distorted tube, which sometimes remained firmly fixed in the barrel. In the Enfield bullet, which was adopted in 1853, a wooden plug was substituted for the iron cup. THE ENFIEl.D BULLET. It is a question, whether eventually both iron and wood may not be got rid of, since it is found that the expansion of a leaden ball, if hollowed at the base, can be effectually attained simply by the force of the explosion, when the metal driven outwards, finds its first and great resistance in the ' lands,' or smooth parts of the barrel left untouched by the rifling, against which it is pressed with great force, and thence overflows into the grooves.^ Embarrassed by defects inherent in different systems, one of the earliest measures of Lord Hardinge was the institution of a comprehensive enquiry into the whole subject of rifled arms and projectiles. He placed himself in communication with Mr. Westley Eichards, Mr. Purdey, and others of the most eminent gun ' It has been suggested that the expansion is caused by the vis inerMip._ of the leaden projectile; and the force acting endwise on the mass 'jumps it up,' as it is termed, in the middle. c 2 20 ENFIELD RIFLE. {.Fa-rt I makers in Great Britain. Six of these supplied pattern muskets of various diameters of bore, ranging from •530 in. the smallest, to -650 in. the largest.' Com- parisons were also made of the weapons in use by the armies of other military powers, and information was collected from leading factories of Europe and the United States; and by the aid of the facts and suggestions thus acquired, the adoption of the musket since known as the ' Enfield rifle ' was resolved on ; and arrangements were put in progress for the organ- isation of a government factory, to be provided with machinery, chiefly on the American model, for shaping the various parts. Here it was proposed to commence at once the production of an arm for the British forces combining, it was hoped, the varied excellencies mani- fested in each of the pattern rifles sent in by the most eminent makers in England. Such was the origin of the 'Enfield rifle ' of 1853. It was stronger than its predecessor of 1851, and at the same time the musket and its sixty cartridges weighed three pounds less.^ It was rifled with grooves and lands on the old system, with 6ne turn in 6 feet 6 inches. Its diameter was '577 of an inch, and at limited ranges it fired a bullet weighing 530 grains with great accuracy and force. During the ten years that have elapsed since its adoption, although other rifles made ' Col. A. Gordon, Letter to Sir C. Tbeveltan on National Defence, 1853. = The total weight of the Enfield and its sixty rounds of ammunition is 141hs. (i oz. 11 dr. Chap. //] LOBD HABDINGE. 21 in England have greatly exceeded it in almost every essential quality, it admits of no doubt that the Enfield rifle is still superior to any arm yet adopted in other countries/ and its efficiency was well attested at the Alma and at Inkermann, where, in the words of the 'Times' correspondent, 'it smote the enemy like a destrojdng angel.' In spite of all the precautions of Lord Hardinge, however, the arrangements for the construction of a government establishment for the manufacture of rifles have not been without disappointments; and the En- field, although incomparably the best that up to that time had been introduced into the service, has since disclosed numerous defects, which those who watched over the early stage of the experiment found it difficult to account for at the time. The velocity of the ball proved to be lower than had been looked for ; its trajectory^ was consequently higher, and its precision and penetration less; the tendency to foul was con- siderable, but what was above all embarrassing was, that no two guns were alike in their •properties or ' See Report of the Ordnance Select Committee, presented to Parlia- ment March 19, 1863. ^ The 'trajectory' of a ball is the line which it describes between leaving the muzzle of the gun and reaching the object aimed at. As the gravity of the projectile imparts a downward tendency in its flight, no portioii of the path of a shot through the air can be said tO' be a right line. In practice, this has to be taken into account by elevating the gun above the object to be fired at till it reaches the angle proportioned to the distance. Hence accuracy of aim is, under such circumstances, the result of complex and elaborate calculation, the necessity for which diminishes in proportion as increased velocity brings down the trajectory towards a level with the gun. 22 MB. WHITWORTH. iPart I. performance, although all underwent the same pro- cess, and were produced by the same means. ' One rifle shoots well,' says Lord Hardinge, 'another ill, and the eye of the best viewer can detect no difference in the gun to account for it.'' The variance, in fact, was such as could only be con- jectured to arise from some subtle imperfection in the manufacture ; and in this emergency recourse was had to the advice and assistance of Mr. Whitworth of Man- chester, a gentleman pronounced by the Secretary of State for the War Department to be ' the most celebrated mechanician of this country.'^ For this eminence in his profession Mr. Whitworth is indebted to a natural aptitude for its cultivation, but mainly to an exhaustive knowledge of its principles and processes, acquired by unconquerable perseverance. Endowed with a taste for mechanics, and with something like an instinct for over- coming difficulties, he developed and disciplined his powers by serving in early life under the ablest masters, Maudslay, Clement, Holtzappfel, and others of the class whose geniils and ability have raised mechanical art to its present high rank in England, especially by the improvement of those wonderful self-acting engines, which under the tecnnical name of 'engine-tools,' (machine-outils,) are now so extensively used for work- ing in metals, as well as for the production of other machines dependent on accuracy and precision. ' Memorandum of Lord Hardin-ge, May 17, 1854, para. 6. 2 Ibid. See also the debate in the House of Commons on the Enfield and Whitworth rifles, June 26, 1861, in which more than once Mr, Whitwoeth was spoken of as ' the greatest mechanical genius in Em-ope.' Chajy. II.] HIS MEPUTATION. 23 Mr. WHtworth does not belong to the ordinary type of inventors, quick, versatile, and ingenious, acting from impulse or apparent inspiration ; his productions, on the contrary, are the results of slow and deliberate thought, bringing former observation to bear upon tentative experiment and accepting nothing as esta- blished till it has undergone proof. Proceeding with a logical severity to rest further operations only on ascer- tained facts, his process is so strictly inductive, that he might justly be designated the Bacon of mechanics. Hence his great reputation rests not so much on any one startling discovery, as on that general stamp of excellence, which he has been enabled to impress on the machinery of the United Kingdom. What he found rude and incomplete, he rendered as nearly as possible perfect, till there is scarcely an operation connected with the shaping of metal, in cutting, planing, turning, boring, slotting, or drilling it, to which he has not ap- plied machines in supersession of hand labour, 'such as the world never saw before; unsurpassed both in excellency, in design, and in perfection of execution.' ' In the motion of the most perfect mechanism, as in the action of that human intelligence which it seems to emulate, there are qualities so essentially alike, that they have come to be designated by terms interchange- ably appropriate to both : truth, firmness, and accuracy, simplicity, strength, and endurance, are epithets borrowed from the attributes of mind, -and applied with equal > Becord of the International Exhibition of 1862, Practical Mechanics' Journal, p. 300. 24 THE MEASURING MACHINE. [Fart 1. significance to the structure and operations of machinery ; and it was in the imparting of these to the inventions of which he became the author, that Mr, Whitworth achieved that reputation in his profession which all might envy, hut which none is so selfish as to dispute. Next to their singular ingenuity, and even more wonderful, in the estimation of those best qualified to judge, is that absence of complexity by which they are ^ * characterised ; their construction being the simplest ima- ginable, consistently with eflBciency and power ; yet such is the delicate and undeviating accuracy of their per- formance, that of the multitude of articles produced by them, each can' be made in form and dimension indis- tinguishable from the others. o For the attainment of this consummate perfection, it is the belief of Mr. Whitworth that the superiority of all machinery is dependent on two elements — the power of measuring with unerring precision, and, asso- ciated with it, the faculty of producing a true plane sivr- face, that is, one so absolutely level that, when opposed to another of equal truth, their contact must be in all parts complete. The Astronomer Eoyal, Mr. Aiket, in his evidence before a committee of the House of Lords, in 1855, stated that the degree to which Mr. Whitworth had succeeded in ' making perfect the planing of sur- faces was entirely unknown before his time.' To such a pitch of excellence has he brought it by a process peculiar to himself,' that a plate of metal prepared by him, ' See licport of the Committee of the House of Lords, on the Weights and Maisui-ei< Bill, 1856,' p. 3. The process has been described in Chap. 11] A TBUE PLANE SURFACE. 25 when opposed to the face of another similarly treated, exhibits a contact so intimate as to enable the operator to lift the under one with it, as if by its actual adhesion to the upper;- — or if less closely applied, so that the thinnest possible layer of atmospheric air may still re- main between, the upper plate will rest on the unex- cluded particles, as if floating on quicksilver. With similar devotion to accuracy Mr. Whitworth, in the search for a means of determining dimensions with precision, constructed a machine, so accurately and delicately made, as to measure objects which differ detail by Mr. Whitworth in an article on True Planes in his Misci l- laneous Papers on Mechanical Subjects, London, 1858. In it he shows that the former method of producing a level surface by grinding two plates of metal together with emery between, so far from producing a true plane, was in reality detrimental, inasmuch as the effect was to impart to one more or less of the imperfections inherent in the other, instead of correcting, as was supposed, the inequalities of both. 'Let it be supposed that one of the smrfaces is concave, and the other a true plane ; the tendency of grinding will, no doubt, be to reduce the error of the former, but the opposite error wiU at the same time be, to a certain extent, created in the opposite surface. The only pos- sible case in which an original error could be extirpated in both would be when it was met by an opposite error of exactly the same amount, and the one destroyed the other It thus appears that the practice of "grinding" has impeded the progress of improye- ment, and that a true surface, instead of being in common use, is almost unknown.' (This had reference to the state of things existing in 1840.) To attain the desired object, Mr. Whitwobth proceeds to show that it is necessary to make three planes in order to insure the perfect evenness of one, and that after imparting the utmost perfection attainable by means of a planing machine, each must be finished by hand, the operator using an instrument for removing by scraping every minute inequality, detected by rubbing each in succession on the sur- face of the other two. ' As the surfaces approach perfection the utmost caution and vigilance is indispensable to prevent them from degenera- ting, which will inevitably happen unless the comparison be constantly made between them all' pp. 3, 19, 41. 26 TEE MILLIONTH OF AN INCH. [Fart L even by the millionth part of an inch— a division so minute as to be perceptible only by touch ' after it has ceased to be discernible by the eye. So nice is the ad- justment, that in using it an inch of steel can be held to be an inch, only so long as the thermometer stands at 62°, the slightest excess of temperature producing an appreciable elongation; — and the standard yard, a square bar of steel, when placed in the machine is so expanded by the slightest touch of the finger as to show an appreciable lengthening even under the in- finence of the infinitesimal a/mount of heat thus imparted. It might be supposed that the value of measures so minute must be but abstract and visionary, and that it could be only in the larger quantities that their use might be available. In practice, however, the import- ' In illustration of the extremely minute quantity represented ty the millionth part of an inch, Mr. Whitwobth explained to the Committee of the House of Lords on the Weights and Measures BUI, in 1855, that ' you have only to rub a piece of soft steel a Tery few times to diminish its thickness a millionth of an inch.' {Report, &c. p. 5.) Elsewhere he has stated that ' The principle of his measuring machine is the employing of the sense of touch instead of that of sight. If an object be placed between two parallel true planes, adjusted so that the hand can just feel them in contact, you wiU find on moving the planes only the fifty-tltousandth of an inch nearer together, that the object becomes distinctly tighter, and requires greater force to move it between them. In the measuring machine (of Mr. Wliitworih) a thin flat piece of steel (caEed the gravity-piece), having its two sides perfect planes, is introduced between the object to be measured and one of the end surfaces of the machine, so as jiist to allow it when raised by the finger to faU again by the force of its own gravity. But by bringing the two planes into closer contact, by even the one-millionth of an inch, this test-piece wiU be fixed and suspended, friction overcoming its gravity.' — Whitwokth's Miscellaneous Papers on Mechanical Subjects, p. 43. Chap. //.] EVIL OF INEXACTITUDE. 27 ance of aiming at sixch accuracy has been visibly de- monstrated. The former habit of being contented with approximate measurements engendered a positive in- ' ability to duly estimate superior correctness; and mechanics became accustomed to look on considerable variations in size, often productive of serious mischief, as not only venial, but even as a result of necessity. But like the Sybarite, whose sleep was disturbed by the inequality of his couch, occasioned by a ruffled rose- leaf,' Mr. 'WTiitworth was impatient of even infinitesi- mal inexactitudes ; and has accustomed the men in his employment to work to the 20,000th part of an inch, till measures so diminutive have become as familiar as those of larger dimensions.^ In the most celebrated workshops in England thirty years ago, mechanics were chary of criticising work which was ' out ' by the 32nd part of an inch, whereas in his works an error of ' division,' is at once noticed and corrected, a division being the 10,000th part of an inch.^ The influence of these improvements in mechanical means has imparted a distinctive character of accuracy to the machinery of the United Kingdom, which places ' 'Idem saepe qnestus est quod foliis rosse duplicatis incubuisset.' iSeneca de Ira, ii. 25. - Whitwokth's Miscellaneous Papers on Mechanical Subjects, p. 58. ' Report of the Committee of the House of Lords on the Weights and Measures Bill, 1855, p. 4. This improTement has spread to other establishments also. Mr. Anderson, the superintendent of the govern- ment factory for artillery at "Woolwich, stated in a discussion at the Institute of Ci-vil Engineers, in February 1860, 'that in olden times there was difficulty in working to the ^ of an inch, but the jig of an inch was now measured with as much ease as was formerly the case with the i or i of an inch.' — Proceedings, tfc. p. 71. 28 SOKEW-THEEAD. [Part I. it in advance of all other countries; and to this nothing has more signally contributed than the standard gauges, graduated to a fixed scale as constant measures of size, for which practical engineers are in- debted to the studious labours of Mr. Wbitworth.' It is not surprising that, in a profession so based upon accuracy as that of mechanical engineering, these achievements of Mr. Whitworth should have entitled him to the confidence of his cotemporaries, and attracted the attention of the government at the crisis when Lord Hardinge applied to him for assist- ance in May 1854. Even then the nature of the difiiculty for the removal of which the military authorities were desirous of his advice and cooperar ' Another acHeTement of Mr. Whitwoeth, wHcli lias rendered signal service in conducing to uniformity and economy, not only in machinery, but in almost erery complex object produced by it, is the perfecting of a system of screws, graduated to all sizes in actual use ; the threads of each being adapted in pitch, depth, and form, to ensure the utmost possible degree of power, strength, and durabDity. The attention of Clement was given to a similar object, but it was reserved for Mr. Whitwokth to achieve it. His system has now been adopted throughout almost every country in the world in which engines and machinery are either employed or manufactured ; and taps and dies for producing the whole series are furnished from his works at Manchester. The value of this single reform may be conjectured when it is borne in mind, that before his time every engineer and machine-maker provided his own screws, on no preconceived principle, but of the most arbitrary form and the utmost variety of dimensions. The consequence of this divergence was the utmost confusion, delay, and expense in repairs, if done by any other indi'i'idual than the actual maker ; and ^ \ presently. / | 1"^-^] But limiting attention to simplicity \ L J-'' j of construction and consequent econ- \i,,''' y omy of cost, rifling of this character •' O HEXAGONAL EIFLE- formed by a few straight lines has a boee foe a peojeo- tlle OF 530 GRAINS. manifest advantage over those which consist only of curves, or of curves combined with other figures, and even over a multiplicity of angular grooves. 46 EIFLED GUNS. [Part I. Meanwhile as regards both muskets and heavy ord- nance, it will be obvious that polygonal rifling, in addition to all other points of superiority, has the adva,ntage of admitting a projectile externally of the same shape, to fit the internal bore of the gun ; and this projectile may be made of steel or any other metal, soft or hard. At the same time the piece is equally adapted for firing an expanding bullet of lead, which during the explosion fills up the angles ; so that the entire ' upset ' is made so conducive to rotation that in firing these cylindrical projectiles the Whit- worth rifle has given much better practice than the Enfield, although the latter was specially designed for them. As regards steadiness of flight, the new system displayed a like superiority over the old, in which the compressed bullet evinced more or less eccentricity;' whilst the Whitworth bullet duly fitted to the hexar gonal barrel issues from the muzzle in a line concentric with the bore ; and hence the marvellous precision exhibited in all its comparative trials against rifles of the most skilful competitors. Another advantage claimed for polygonal rifling over that with grooves is the greater service and longer > May not one cause of ttis eccentricity in the old Enfield tall be more or less aseribable to the fact that it contained no provision for ensuring the eijuable expansion of the lead by the uniformly concentrie entrance of the plug in the rear, which might on the contrary take an irregular direction during the explosion, and thus give rise to an in- equality of density, for which its low power of rotation afiForded no sufE- cient correction ? Contrasted with this, the Whitworth projectile presents the elements of superiority in the precise fitness of its form, as well as the homogeneity of its metaL Chap.III.'] RIFLED GUNS. 47 duration of the barrel both in rifles and in cannonf?. In the former the projectile, in its progress toward the muzzle, is guided evenly by the sides of the barrel, which all act upon it uniformly in imparting rotation ; whilst in the latter the bullet is conducted by the edges of the grooves only, so that a very small extent of the surface of the barrel acts in contact with it. But that small portion has to sustain all the wear caused by the friction ; and the barrels being made of soft iron, it is not surprising that rifles so soon wear out ; and that those used in the British army have, it is said, to be replaced after twelve years' service. The 'WTiitworth rifle, on the contrary, being made of homo- geneous metal, which is a mild kind of steel, has a greatly prolonged endurance; which, combined with its peculiar form of rifling, renders it more economical. Nor is the accuracy and care required in its construc- tion more costly than ought to be applied in the pro- duction of any other gun intended to shoot correctly.' Besides, it does not involve anything beyond ordinary care in handling and using it ; on the contrary, the ease ' With the Tiew to imprOTing the old system of measuring gun- barrels, Mr. Whit-woeth made about this time a series of cylinders called ' difference gauges,' in sizes differing by the j^th of an inch, five being less and five greater than the standard size of the Government bore, 'ST? in. Some considerable time elapsed before these gauges were employed in the Enfield works ; but a set having been supplied to Mr. Westlet Kichaeds, that gentleman stated that he was thereby enabled to improve the shooting of rifles to which they were applied from 50 to 100 per cent. He used them in manufacturing four rifles which were fired in comparison with four Enfields specially sent for the occasion, when the average deviation of the shots from the centre of the target was 12-56 and 38'40 respectively. 48 WHITWOBTH BALL. Parti with which the bullet is introduced affords the greatest facility in loading. At the commencement of his practice Mr. Whit- worth found that a cylindrical leaden bullet expands so readily into the rounded corners of the hexagon that all apprehension was removed of what is technically called ' stripping,' whereby the bullet, instead of following tke spiral turn of the rifling, impinges against its edges and divesting itself of form issues from the barrel without rotation. It was even less- possible for such an occurrence to take place, with the mechanically fitting projectiles which' have a configuration conformable to the hexa- gonal outline of the bore. Bullets so shaped can be made of iron or steel ; but for general use those of lead were adopted, hardened by a So far were these from ' stripping ' or running into the opposite ex- treme of 'jamming,' to the injury of the piece, that distortion was avoided, the flight was rendered more true, the trajectory lowered, and the power of pene- tration was augmented, the whole explosive force of the powder being exerted in propelling the projectile; whereas in the case of cylindrical projectiles part is ab- sorbed in expanding the bullet, part escapes before this is accomplished, and the balance alone is left for pro- pulsion. , One of these bullets composed one-tenth of tin and nine-tenths of lead, fired at 50 yards, with a charge of 2| drachms of powder, passed through fifteen inches BULLET FDK THE ■WHIT- -woBTH due alloy of tin EIFLE. I. Ill] PITCH. 49 of elm, whilst under equal conditions a conical bullet of lead fired from the Enfield rifle penetrated only through six. Another point of uncertainty which required to be determined was, whether the greatly increased rapidity of rotation imparted to the projectile might not possibly interfere with its trajectory,' and prejudice its faculty for horizontal flight. To determine what loss (if any) was ito be apprehended from this source, Mr. Whitworth made a barrel 39 inches long with what he considered I at that time an unusually quick turn of one in 10 [inches, which gave nearly four turns in the barrel unstead of the half turn -of the Enfield rifle. Eelying ;with confidence on the mechanical fit of the ball, he i had no fear of its ' stripping,' and on trying it he found • that the increase in the quickness of the turn produced J no appreciable increase in the arch of the trajectory. , Many subsequent experiments with barrels having turns 5 even Tuore quick, proved beyond all doubt that the J requisite amount of rotation could be given to projec- 1 tiles without a sacrifice of direct horizontal range, [, force being utilised at the same time by preventing the ,( too ready escape of the bullet. i The principle of polygonal rifiing was not new, nor |i did Mr. Whitworth lay any claim to originality in its ;, conception. Its application to guns had been attempted (jby others before him, and a rifle is exhibited in the i( arsenal at Woolwich hexagonally bored by Serjeant I ' Letter to Lord Panmuee, June 13, 1857. 50 MB. BEVNEL. [Parti Moore of the Royal Artillery, so far back as 1839, But it is not the abstract idea that constitutes the real question in the majority of those cases whioh give rise to disputes about priority of invention : the 'principle' may be' common to all, but the merit ;of discovery attaches to its practical application in new combinations and under new forms. It no more qualifies the honour due to Mr. Whitworth as the in- ventor of his own system, that polygonal rifling had been previously thought of, than it militates against the merit of Mr. Nasmyth, that a patent for a steam- hammer had been taken out by Devereux in 1804. The idea of polygonal rifling occurred to the late Mr, Brunei in 1852 (but others, he states, had preceded him), and two experimental rifles were made for him' at Birmingham, by Mr. Westley Eichards. But inde- pendently of minor differences between them — such as the use of an octagon instead of the Whitworth form, the retention of the angular corners, and the intro- duction of an 'increasing'^ instead of a uniform pitch in the rifling — the system introduced and patented by Mr. Whitworth in 1854 (before commencing his official experiments in the new gallery), and again in 1855, presented this distinctive claim to originality, that it was the first which, along with a peculiar form ' See Mr. Brunel's Letter to Mr. "Westley Richards, Not. 26, 1858, in the Appendix to the Beport of the Home of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, p. 402. See also the evidence of Mr. Westley Eichakds, p. 191, etc., and that of Mr. Whitworth. Ibid. p. 110, 112. ' See post, p. 54. Chap. III.] THE 'SECRET.' 61 for rifling, included the use of a corresponding form for the projectile. The system is one which seemed naturally to suggest itself to the constructive minds ■engaged upon the rifle, as affording the best means for working out the two fundamental yet simple principles of practical mechanics embodied in the production of true plane and the power of accurate measurement. Its adoption by Mr. Whitworth occurred, as has been already stated, when he was . engaged in the considera- tion of the best mode for constructing siege-guns, with a view at once to strength and portability; and by him it was afterwards applied, and brought to its ulti- mate development in the production of the rifled m.usket. The 'unknown secret' which had so long been a desideratum with the Ordnance department was thus disclosed ; and the principle was found to consist in an improved system of rifling ; a turn in the spiral four times greater than the Enfield rifle ; a bore in diameter one-fifth less ; an elongated projectile capa- ble of a mechanical fit; and last, but not least, a more , refined process of manufacture. Like many other theories which mechanical skill has ■ reduced to practical realities, the idea of reduced bore , and increased twist had occurred to one other experi- menter at least, before it was worked out and adopted by Mr. Whitworth. Both were recommended some I years before by Greneral Jacob of Indian service ; who, ' when in command of the Scinde Irregular Horse, con- ducted, at his own expense, a series of experiments on E 2 62 BOEE. [Part'l the rifle such as have seldom been undertaken even by the most enlightened governments. All suggested im- provements were tested by Mm under every conceivable shape, and hundreds of thousands of experiments re- corded and classified.' The diameter of the bore, which in the Enfield musket is -577 of an inch, was reduced in the Whitworth rifle to '451 measured across the flats, or -490 across the angles of the hexagon. The change was not made without due deliberation and data; Mr. Whitworth's experiments with various bores having shown that with each diameter there is a corresponding charge of powder, and a suitable weight of projectile, which with a given range will give the best trajectory, together with the least recoil. In the Enfield rifle, with a bullet of the regulation weight of 530 grains, he found that the bore of -577 of an inch was too large for the • charge employed, inasmuch as it gave too high a trajec tory ; and that any attempt to increase the chargfe, so as greatly to reduce the arc of the trajectory, would render the recoil so severe that soldiers would require to be much stronger than ordinary men, to endure it. Re- peated trials served to satisfy him that on the whole a bore of '451 in. was preferable, enabling 70 grains of ' Edinburgh Reitiew, April 1859, p. 623. The result of General Jacob's researches was the production of a short-barrelled four-grooved rifle, 'with which,' to use his own words, ' a tolerably good shot can ce^ tainly strike an object the size of a man, once out of three times, at i 1,000 yards distance ; and of which the full effective range is about 2,000 yards, the ball at this range still flying with deadly velocity.' ! Captaiii Felly's Views and Opinions (/Brigadier General Jacob. j Chap. Ill'] TUEN OF SPIRAL. S3 powder to propel a projectile of 530 grains, at a very low trajectory, and without inconvenient recoil; the trajectory of his rifle being eight feet six inches at its highest point, and that of the Enfield eleven. Another point to be determined was the degree of twist to be given to rifling, and the number of turns requisite to impart the necessary velocity of rotation for ordinary service. In the Enfield musket, as already stated, the spiral curve to be traversed by the bullet makes one turn round the interior of the barrel in advancing six feet and a half; but this moderate degree admits only of the use of short projectiles, as long ones ' turn over ' on issuing from the muzzle, and short ones become unsteady at great ranges. For all practical purposes Mr. Whitworth adopted with his reduced bore one turn in 20 inches, which he found to be ample for securing a comparatively steady flight over a range of 2,000 yards. The advocates of the slower twist upheld it on the ground that anything quicker was liable to impede the ball by producing friction to an injurious if not dangerous extent ; but in the course of his experiments Mr. "Whit- worth demonstrated that the effect of great rapidity is felt, not at the breech when the ball is beginning to move, but towards the muzzle when it has acquired its maximum of velocity ; — and that ' whatever strain is put upon a gun at the instant of explosion is due, not to the resistance of friction, but to the vis inertice of the projectile which has to be overcome at starting, and is, of course, greater as the projectile is made more 54 ■ -INCEEASING FITCH. [Parti: heavy.'' It is owing to this vis inertice that the portion of a gun, whether of small or great calibre, which most of all requires strength and resistance, and which most frequently gives way during service, is the region of the breech in front of what is commonly known as the chamber for the powder. This fact is in itself conclusive against the adoption of a plan, that has occasionally been entertained, of rifling with an ' increasing pitch ' — that is, beginning with a comparatively slow spiral or rifling curve at first, the turns increasing in rapidity and number as the twist approaches the muzzle. This was conceived with the design to relieve the supposed friction at the moment when the ball commences to rotate ; but the force required to cause a projectile to turn on its axis is so slight compared with that which is necessary to impart its direct momentum, that it may almost be omitted from consideration.^ Besides which a projec- tile intended to be fired from a rifle with an increasing twist, must be made of soft metal to enable it to adapt its form to every successive change in the curve of the rifling, thus causing increasing resistance, which becomes greater as it reaches the muzzle, the very place where relief is wanted. ' Whitworth's Miscellaneous Papers on Mechanical Subjects, p. 17. 2 Mr. BiDDEE, the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers,foimd that the force sufficient to give rotation to a 3-lb. shot fired from a A¥hitivorth rifled gan, compared mth the force required to impart its forward motion, was as 1 to 170. Time, however, is an element which has to bo taken into consideration, for the high rotation of upwards of 60,000 revolutions per minute has to be imparted almost instantaneously. 'Chap. Ill] FOULING. 55 ' A further consideration, not of minor importance, re- mained to be provided for ; the inconvenience arising 'from the tendency of gunpowder after explosion to leave 'deposits, more or less hardened, encrusting the inner ! surface of the barrel. To prevent this from accu- mulating, Mr. Whitworth inserted along with every 'charge a proper quantity of lubricating material, ^introduced as a ' wad,' which under the force and -heat of explosion is distributed over the interior of 'the bore, rendering the fouling residuum so loose that it iis driven out by the next discharge.' The most suitable * composition he found to be a mixture of tallow and wax, 1 and with this introduced between the powder and the i ball a cartridge for the Whitworth rifled fowling-piece j presents the appearances shown in the accompanying i sketch. The powder, the wad, and the bullet, in the J order which they are required to take in the barrel, I are placed in a tubular case which is closed by a slip » of paper that acts as a ' trap-valve.' This being with- li drawn when the cartridge is placed in the muzzle, its ; contents, by one thrust of the ramrod, are sent home I to the breech. [ And here it may be well to repeat, that the principles ' Competitive trials of small-bore rifles are inTited annually by the „ National Eifle Association, and it may be remembered that at the " contest held at Woolwich in 1863 Mr. Whitworth introduced a new ', ramrod, which, by the action of a mechanically fitting l^ead reToMng on an axis, removes all fouling deposits. On that occasion the Regulations : for the day rendered the use of this inadmissible ; but after the contest ' riflemen generally hastened to adopt the new ramrod, which has proved to be a signal improvement. 56 CARTRIDGE. [Parti thus disclosed and elaborated in the production of the Whitworth rifle are not limited to guns of small calibre. CAETEIDGE FOR THE "WHITWOBTH KITLED FOWLING-PIECE. A. External view. B. The ball. 0. Wad. n. Charge of gunpowder. ^' ^^I °^ P^P^i'. f"i withdi-awing which thfi contents of the cartridge are forced by the ramrod into the barrel F. A groove, to admit securing the whole by a compressed tie. Chap.ni] IBON-PLATE PIERCED. 57 They are ' applicable equally to ordnance of all sizes ; and not only so, but the mechanical difficulties diminish with the expansion of the dimensions, and the advantages to be secured appear to increase with the increased pro- portions of the gun.' ' It has already been seen ^ that the model of a cannon in segments exhibited the germ of the Whittvorth rifle ; and all the prodigious powers that have since been manifested in ponderous pieces of ordnance are but expanded developments of the one pervading principle which imparts its value to both. As regards rifled guns for naval warfare, it was from data derived from his rifled musket that Mr. Whitworth ventured in 1857 to predict what he ac- complished in 1860 and 1862. With a flat-fronted projectile of steel, fired from it with 2^ drachms of powder at a distance of 20 yards, he succeeded, at an early period, in piercing through a plate of wrought iron six-tenths of an inch thick, upon which a spherical ball of the same metal, fired with the same charge of powder, made only a shallow indentation. Hence he confidently predicted, so early as June 1857, that ^pro- jectiles of wrought iron steeled, might he made for pieces of ordnance, capable of penetrating the sides of floating batteries ' ' protected by iron armour. It is necessary here — in closing this brief narrative of ' Mr. Whitwoeth to Lord Panmuee, Secretary for War, June 13, 1857. 2 See Chap. 11. p. 37. ^ Mr. "Whitwoeth's Letter to Lord Panmuei:, June 13, 1857. 58 TRIALS AT HYTHE. [Fart L the rifled musket, and before; commencing the story of the large gun— to anticipate the order of time, and to recapitulate summarily the events which have since occurred in relation to the Enfield and Whitwortt muskets; between the year 1857, when the author of the latter reported its completion to the. Secretary for War, and the present. time. The Whitworth rifle was first formally tried in competition with the best Enfield muskets at Hythsj in April 1857, in the presence of the Minister of War, and a large assemblage of the mogt experienced officers, including amongst others the Superintendent of the Enfield factorj', and General Hay, the chief of the School of Musketry for the Army. The success was surprising ; in range and precision it ex- celled the Government musket three to one. Fp to that time the best figure of merit obtained by any rifle at home or abroad, was 27 ; that is to say, the best shooting had given an average of shots within a circle of ttuenty-seven inches mean radius, at 500 yards distance; but the Whitworth lodged an average of shots within a mean radius of four inches and a half from the same distance ; thus obtaining a figure of merit of 4^.. At 800 yards its superiority was as 1 to 4, a proportioii which it maintained at 1,000 yards and upwards. Al; 1,400 yards the Enfield shot so wildly that the record ceased to be kept; and at 1,800 yards the trials with it ceased altogether, whilst the Whitworth continued to exhibit its accuracy as before. The accompanying i i| 1 1 1 1, 1 1 [:|:|::j:^"|"|~^ 3X"H~['T — TT" , :"""'"' : JJ-LLU-I TTTT ITTTT T TIT T^'---f-F---ir-------"^>^---------------- I T T I [T TT -- ]M^ i 1 i BS^! l i i lill!l i| iMWi i| ' ' M i ^ «? N ^ s .>&, ^ :::::::::::::::: ::::::i::::!::::::^ :+::::+:::*::: + :::: :: :::::::::::::::::::d::3[i;:::::: :::::::::::::::::: :: ::: • k ::;:: 1 1 1 1 il , I ; 1 1 "| I ;| I I ; * I ; «H f |. r t| || | ' Tl ' lTnL-r ■I «> 'C "S i «;- Chap. Ill] SUCCESSFUL TARGET. 59 diagram serves to render the comparison apparent to the eye.' Acotemporary writer summing up the results of these early trials says, at the time Mr. Whitworth commenced his experiments ' it was deemed first-rate workmanship in a rifle, if the deviation from accuracy in the barrel did not exceed 1 in 300 ; Mr. Whitworth reduced it to 1 in 10,000. In point of accuracy and range, the advan- tage of the old rifle over " Brown Bess " was more than five to two, the advantage of the Whitworth rifle is at fifty to one over the old rifle. Its combined improve- ments give a more correct range than the Minie, and one-half further with one-third less gunpowder. The extreme range of the Minie is 1,400 yards, but the ' The following Table exhibits the official retimi of results : — Distance in Angle of Mean Kadial Description of RiHe Yards Elevation Deviation Remarks feet Enfield . . . 500 1° 32' 2-24 Whitworth 500 1 16 •37 Enfield . . . 800 2 45 4-20 Whitworth . . 800 2 22 1-00 Enfield . . . 1,100 4 12 8-00 Whitworth . . 1,100 3 8 2-62 Enfield . . . 1,400 — — ( Shooting so wild X no diagram taken Whitworth . . 1,400 5 4-62 Enfield . . . 1,800 — — Not tried Whitworth . . 1,800 6 40 11-62 The trials above alluded to took place from a fixed rest : the follow- ing day General HiY with a Whitworth rifle fired from the shoulder, and made a target of 15 inches at 800 yards ; that is to say, from thatrange all his shot told within that mean distance of the centre. The range was then increased to 1,000 yards, when the practice he made was equally good. 60 THE MINIE BEATEN. {Parti range of the Whitworfch is 2,000. On careful trials at 500 yards' distance, the accuracy of shooting of the English Whitworth is more than ten to one compared with the best P^'rench Minies now made.' ' This allu- sion to the Minies refers to the competitive trials at Vincennes in 1860, when the Whitworth rifle was ordered by the Emperor to be tried against the best pieces that France could then produce. At a range of 500 metres the former was victorious in the proportion of three to one ; at 700 metres the French retired from the contest ; while up to 1,000 the Whitworth continued to make accurate shooting. As a consequence of the trial at Hythe in 1857, an official comrnittee was appointed, composed partly of military officers and partly of officials, more or less associated with the introduction and manufacture of the Grovernment rifle at Enfield, — Mr. Whitworth was also nominated as a member. After eighteen months spent in desultory discussions and experiments, this Committee made a report, in which only a section of the members concurred, whilst others recorded their individual opinions in protests; and the committee eventually separated without recording any consis- tent recommendation sufficient for the guidance of the Secretary at War. Although the superior merits of the Whitworth rifle were admitted throughout the minutes of their proceedings, the making of the Enfield masket con- tinued with unabated assiduity. But experimentally, ' 'Tlie Spectator, October 1860. Chap. III.} GENERAL HAY. ^ 61 important improvements have since been adopted in what was called the ' small-bore Enfield,' which has not yet been taken into the service. In it the calibre has been reduced from 0'577 to 0'451 of an inch, whilst the rapidity of rifling has been augmented from one turn in 78 inches to one in 20. The original system of grooving has been retained, but with the view of easing the friction on the lands, the number of grooves has been increased from three in the service musket to five in the ' small bore.' Both in the reduced diameter of the bore therefore, and the increased rapidity of the rifling, these features have been adopted from the Whitworth model ; and though many previous defects have been corrected by the change, others remain, so that the Whitworth maintains its original superiority over both service and Enfield ' small bore.' N^or is there any apparant reason why a bore equal to that of the service musket, rifled on the Whitworth system, should not be made to surpass it both in range, penetration, and accuracy of fire. The Chief of the Government School of Musketry at Hythe, Greneral Hay, than whom from his oflBcial responsibilities no authority could be more im- partial, when called on in February I860, by the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, to state his opinion of the merits of the Whitworth rifle, placed onrecord his judgment, in the following words, extracted from the printed proceedings: — 'As to the relative merits of the Enfield and Whitworth rifles, that is a matter upon which any man who has carefully con- 62 ACCUBACY. [Parti. sidered the subject is competent to come to a con- clusion. The small bore would of course in accurate shooting beat the large bore.^ There is a peculiarity about the Whitworth small bore rifles, which no other similar arms have yet exhibited ; they not only give greater accuracy of firing but triple power of penetra- tion. For special purposes any description of bullet can be used in them, from lead to steel. The "Whit- worth rifle, with a bullet composed of one tenth of tin, penetrated through' 35 planks, whereas the Enfield rifle (with which a soft bullet is necessary) only pene- trated 12. He (Greneral Hay) had found that ' at a range of 800 yards, the velocity added to the hardness of the bullet gave a power of penetration, in the pro- portion of 17 to 4 in favour of the Whitworth rifle. Velocity might be taken as a certain test, " caeteris paribus," of penetration. The penetration of the Whit- worth rifle was enormous, and this in a military weapon was of the highest importance in firing through sand- bags, gabions, &c. The Whitworth projectile would penetrate a sandbag and a half: the Enfield only through one bag ; the Whitworth projectile would go through a three feet gabion : the other would only reach the middle of it. He thought the merits of the ' Mr. Whitwoeth, in his Miscellaneous Papers on Mechanical Sub- jects, says 'it has often been said that small bores, as a matter of course, will give more accurate shooting than large ; but this is only true if fhe pieces are suck as can be conveniently fired from the shoulder. There is no reason why the shooting of the larger bore should not be actually better than that of the smaller one (provided the proper projec- tile and charge of powder be used), as the larger bore will propel a heavier ball, which will have a greater momentum,' p. 9. Chap. III.] MR. BIDDER. 63 "small bore " had never been sufficiently understood. He was quite aware that "small bores" had been made; and it had been stated recently, that the small bore Enfield had beaten the small bore Whitworth ; but nothing of the kind had ever taken place. Hitherto the sabject, he did not hesitate to say, had been entirely misunder- stood, and it was only by such discussions as these, that the public could learn the real facts of the case. It was proper also to state, that the exact bore of the Whit- worth rifle had been adopted at Enfield, without acknow- ledgment, that even the same twist had been given to the rifling — 1 turn in 20 in. — and therefore it would not be very remarkable, if the same accuracy of fire was obtained. But he had shown, that there were other things to be considered besides accuracy. Sup- posing, for instance, that the same accuracy of fire was obtained with the smallbore Enfield, as with the Whit- worth rifle, there was still the fact of the penetration of the latter being two-thirds more than that of the former. Mr. Whitworth had solved the problem he undertook; namely, how to project, to the best advan- tage, a given quantity of lead with a given quantity of gunpowder, and there was no gun in England, at this moment, ruhich would fulfil that condition to the same extent as the Whitvjorth rifle.'' ' As regards the liability to getting foul during practice, Greneral Hay, in reply to a question from the President, Mr. BiDDEE, said that ' every gun ' in which a certain ' Report of the proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers on the Construction of Artillery, p. 113. 64 WIMBLEDON. {Part I. amount of powder was exploded, would become foul. But if the bullet expanded properly, it left the gun, as it were, ' sponged out ' after every shot. Should the bullet not expand, the gun of course would not be clean,. He ventured to say that the Whitworth small-bore rifle, fired with common sporting powder, would never foul, so as to render loading difficult. If the lubrication were correct, 'there could be no such fouling, even when the rifle was used constantly for a month. He had himself tired 100 rounds one day, 60 rounds the next, then 40 rounds, and so on, and left the gun without cleaning for ten days, when it fired as well as it did on the first day.' ' It would be tedious to enumerate the repeated instances in which in every succeeding year the Whitworth rifle has been tried again and again against the Enfield and others, the best productions of the most skilful gun-makers in England, and always with the uniform result of high superiority. Tlie National Rifle Association have instituted annual matches at rifle shooting, at which the Whitworth has been invariably triumphant over all competitors. At Wimbledon, in 1860, the first meeting was inaugu- rated by the Queen in person, who fired the first shot from a Whitworth rifle, striking the bull's eye at only one inch and a half from the centre, at a dis- tance of 400 yards — a shot which, considering that it ' Ibid. p. 114. Similar testimony is borne in the Eeport of the Ordnance Select Committee on Small-bore Sifles. Presented to Parlia- ment in March 1863, p. 13. CMp. Ill] THE ENFIELD RIFLE. 65 was in the open air, is probably the most marvellous ever fired from a rifle.' On that occasion the Swiss riflemen who had carried off the first prizes in their own country, laid aside their rifles, to use the Whitworth in preference, from its manifest superiority. Under such circumstances surprise has naturally been excited as to the possible causes in operation, which have so long delayed the adoption by the War Office of an arm expressly designed for the public service. Of this, one explanation centres on the outlay already in- curred in arming the forces with the Enfield musket, and the inconvenience apprehended during the period of transition, pending its supercession by any other. As to the cost for altering the machinery at Enfield, so as to adapt it for the production of the Whitworth, it appears that this can be done for a comparatively small sum; and that this once effected, 'the service muskets rifled on the Whitworth principle, could be manufactured at the same cost as the Enfield, the pre- sent quality of material and workmanship being the same.' ^ It, however, admits of little doubt that eventu- ally these obstacles will be overcome, and that ere long the British soldier will be animated by the consciousness of possessing an arm, the most perfect ' Speech of Mr. Hussey Vitian, House of Commons, June 25, 1861. ^ Letter of Mr. "Whitwokth to Mr. Husset ViviAir, read in tlie House of Commons, June 25, 1861. Mr. Whitwoeth is, however, of opinion tliat it -would be wiser to incur at first an additional charge of about five shillings for each musket, in order to cover increased care in the making of the barrel, and thus ensure its longer duration. — 3. F 66 SEPOST ON RIFLES. [Fart I. that the science of his own country, combined with high mechanical ability, can produce. Already the military advisers of the Minister of War, in a Eeport of the Committee on small-bore rifles, presented to Parliament in 1863, have intimated their con- viction that as the tendency of the present system of musketry instruction is calculated to produce ere long a very high standard of shooting throughout the army, the introduction of a weapon of long range and great precision, will naturally increase the general efficiency of infantry, and place it in a position to keep down the fire of the new rifled artillery, which is one of the creations of our own day. On the other hand, considerations which retard the adoption of a small-bore rifle are set out in the Report of the Ordnance Select Committee on systems of rifling for sm,all arms, presented to Parliament in March 1863. These turn chiefly on the wear that takes place in consequence of the percussioning hammers being liable to break, and the nipples to be damaged by the force of the escaping gas. 'The wear in the latter, may, however, be prevented to a certain extent, by bouching the nipple with platinum or copper, and by a very careful fitment of the nipple into its bed ; but the Committee are satisfied from the experience they have had, that no amount of precaution is likely to be effectual in preventing the very rapid wearing out of the small-bore rifle in this respect.' ' It appears, however, that the pieces tried oh this ' Report, fc, pars. 61, 62, 63, 64. CAap. ///.] COST. 67 occasion as Whitworth rifles, were, in reality, made at Enfield, with the Whitworth bore and rifling ; and the evidences of premature wear were ascribable not to the construction of the musket, but to the softness of the material, a defect which would be obviated by the use of homogeneous iron, with platina bouching for the nipples; the extra cost of which would be far more than repaid by the extra duration of the rifle. The Enfield with the Whitworth improvements is said to be un- serviceable after 1,500 rounds, but a rifle made by Mr. Whitworth, and used for deer-stalking by Mr. Horatio Ross, showed no signs of decay after firing 7,000 rounds. Another exception taken by the Commissioners in this Eeport, has reference to the shape of the cartridge in use for the Whitworth rifle, the increased length of which 'would render it liable to break in the soldier's pouch, and it would be inconvenient to load with.' ' The objection to the cartridge has since been removed, whilst the other difiiculty alleged, relative to the cost of the Whitworth rifle, which the Committee have been given to understand, would exceed that of the Enfield service musket by about fifteen shillings, is met by the counter-statement of Mr. Whitworth before alluded to. For these reasons the Committee did not feel warranted in recommending ' the introduction of a rifle of so small a bore as 0451 inch, for the entire army; but they think that a partial issue of arms having such superior precision, would be attended with advantage ; whether to be allotted to special regiments, or distri- ' Beport, S[c., par. 65. F 2 68 REPOBT. [Fart I. buted among marksmen of known skill and coolness, being a question for higher authorities to decide.' Finally, in reply to the enquiry whether (assuming that a rifle of smaller bore than that now used should be adopted) any particular pattern arm has shown from experiment any superiority, or whether the gun-trade should be invited to compete for the production of the best weapon ? the Committee record their opinion that ' although they have assigned the reasons above for not recommending the general adoption of a rifle of the reduced calibre of 0'451, they think it only just to Mr. Whitworth to acknowledge the relative superiority of his small-bore rifle even as a military weapon over all the other rifles of svmilar calibre that have been under trial. And as the makers of every small-bore rifle having any pretension to special accuracy, have copied to the letter the three main elements of success adopted by Mr. WhitwoHh, . viz. diameter of bore, degree of spiral, and large proportion of rifling surface, it is not probable that any further modifications or quasi improvements, that might result frora the question being now thrown open to the gun-trade, would be attended with any practical advantage.' The Committee conclude their Eeport by declaring that ' with the exception of the defect already noticed as to wear, and the difficulty of obtaining ammunition suitable for the rifle as well as the service, the Com- mittee are of opinion that the Whitworth rifle, taking all other points into consideration, is superior to all other arms a^ yet produced, and that this superiority CUp.UL'\ OPINION OF THE COMMITTEE. 69 would be retained if Mr. Whitworth could ensure all the arms being made with equal mechanical perfection.' ' With regard to the last condition, it is only neces- sary to state that, with the machinery used by Mr. "Whitworth, -the rifle may be reproduced to any im- aginable extent, with an accuracy as undeviating as that with which the gold coinage of the kingdom is multiplied by the dies of the Mint. • Report ^c, page 68. PAKT II. EIFLED CANNON. 73 CHAPTEE I. KIFLED CANNON — THE FIRST INVENTORS. THE revolution in musketry produced by the new development of the rifle, involved of necessity a corresponding revolution in artillery, and especially in field-guns. At former periods, when the powers of the rifle were still limited and uncertain, it afi"orded little or no check to field-batteries, either in taking up position or in maintaining a destructive fire upon in- fantry : nor does it admit of question, that during the campaigns of Napoleon the issue of decisive engage- ments might have been reversed, had gunners at that time, instead of acting securely from a distance of 400 or 500 yaids, been exposed to the fire of riflemen whose aim is deadly at more than 1,000. But as already mentioned' the military states of Europe at an early period were slow to supersede the old musket by an improved weapon, and equally tardy at a later one in extending to artillery the same ap- pliances which had so vastly enlarged the power of small arms. It was not till 1830, when the army of Algiers had lost faith in the range of its own weapon as com- ' See chap. i. pp. 4, 8. 74 BIFLED CANNON. [Part U. pared with that of the Arab fire-lock,' that attention was earnestly directed to the improvement of the weapon for infantry; but before 1848 upwards of 16,000 rifles were in the hands of the French troops. About the same time the Prussians had 60,000 men armed with their 'needle-gun.' But the moment this impulse was given, it became evident that the imparting of new qualities to small arms must be fatal to the previous ascendency of cannon, and that unless the power of the latter could be augmented in a like proportion, artillery would cease to exert its accustomed influence in deciding the fate of battles." Out of this rational ' Le 14 juiu 1830, Tarmfe de rexp^dition d'Afrique dibarque dans la baie de Sidi-Ferrueh. Bient6t les Arabes vieiment nous attaquer, et uous les Toyons, pointant leuis longs fusils sous des angles tr^B-inclinis, envoyer leurs balles dans nos colonnes a des distances de cinq, six et sept cent metres. Nos soldats ripostent, comme on lenr avait appris a le faire, en tirant a la eible a deux cent metres au plus, et leurs balles ftappent a terre dans le sable. L'opinion s'itablit uttssitSt, dans toute Varmee, que les fusils des Arabes portent plus loin que Us notres! Et cette opinion, qui pent souvent exercer une influence si fatale but le moral du soldat, on la laisse subsister pendant des ann6es! On ne cherobe pas a lui persuader qu'un fueil, quelle que soit la longueur de son canon, ne pent lancer une balle de 24 a la livre, extrimement mal faite, plus loin que nos fusils ne lancent une baJle, de 19 4 laliwe, parfaitement sph&rique et ayant une grande vitesse. On ne fait pas remarquer aux soldats que cette grande portte que les Arabes obtiennent n'est pas due aux propriites de Tamie, et notamment 4 la longueur de leurs canons, mais a I'ineliQaison considerable de Tangle sous lequel ils tirent.— Delvigne, Notice Sistorigue des Arms Eaykes, p. 57. ' In 1827 and 1828, a Commission was appointed in France to enquire into the subject of rifled arms, in the course of whose discussion It was urged, that if to the musket they could impart such precision and range as then appeared probable, 'il faudrait reformer la moitiA de rartillerie, paree que la moitii de I'artiLlerie deviendrait inutUe ' (Dei,- viGNE, Notice Histor. des Armes Eayles, p. 44). This opinion was Chap. 1.1 RIFLING IN EUROPE. 75 conviction arose the rifled guns of Lancaster and others in England, and in France the canons rayees, whose powers of destruction, developed too late to be displayed against the Kussians in the Crimea or the Baltic, were manifested with fearful effect at Magenta and Solferino. The idea of rifling artillery was far from being new ; it had been tried in Grermany more than a century before our time, and Eobins, the accomplished inventor of the ' ballistic pendulum ' for determining the re- lative velocity of projectiles, experimented on rifled field- pieces in England so far back as 1745.' M. Ponchara at Paris in 1819, and Montigny at Brussels in 1836, and again at St. Petersburgh in 1836, had in succession renewed the attempt. Colonel Cavalli in Sardinia, and Baron Wahrendorf in Sweden, each carried on experiments in rifling, and combined with it inventions for breech-loading; but the measure of their success was not attested by the practical adoption of any of their plans. repeated at a later period by Colonel Fate, one of the ablest and most experienced officers in the French army, and a Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique : 'le canon conserve but la carabine im avantage, . . . . . cependant il ne fant pas se dissimuler que I'efficacitA et I'importance des bouches a feu penvent etre notablement diminn^es par I'aecroisse- ment de portee et de justesse des armes a feu portatives ... TartiUerie a de grands efforts a faire pour ne pas voir diminuer son influence sur le sort des batailles.' ' The twenty-first number of the Jov/rnal of the Royal United Service Institution contains a paper by Commander E. A, E. Scott, E-N., in which that gentleman has condensed, in an extremely lucid and com- prehensive essay, the leading facts relative to the ' progress of ordnance abroad compared with that of ordnance at home.' In this able document will be found a compendious account of the early attempts made to introduce rifled artillery in all the military states of Europe ; as weU as of the condition of the question at the present day. 76 FRANCE. [PartU. Colonel Treuille deBeaulieu made more than one effort between 1840 and 1852 to revive the subject in France, and at length, in 1854, Napoleon III., himself an authority on artillery, convinced by the protraction of the operations before Sebastopol of the insufficiency of smooth-bore siege guns to meet the requirements of modern warfare, directed the resumption of experi- ments on rifled cannon. Uniting in one piece various suggestions of previous inventors, amongst others of Baron Wahrendorf and Lieutenant Engstroem, some brass guns were grooved under the direction of Colonel Treuille de BeauUeu, and sent for immediate service to Algeria. With further improvements, suggested by their trial there, and afterwards in' Cochin China, France was the first to possess herself of rifled field-guns, and the earliest opportunity for the display of their de- structive forces was afforded by the Italian campaign in 1856. The guns there employed were rifled with six roimded grooves, and being capable of firing ordinary ammunition as well as elongated projectiles from long distances, they scattered the reserves of the Austrians, rolled back the charges of cavalry, and ploughed through squadrons at close quarters with case-shot and canister.' ' Commander Scott, Roff. Un. Service Journal,, xxi. p. 10. As it is not intended to extend tliis notice with a view to comprehend the progress of rifling in other countries, it may be well to state briefly here that Austria, having during the Italian war dearly learned the value of rifled artillery, sedulously applied herself to acquire it ; and after a comparison of the advantages of lead-coated projectiles, rejected them in order to adopt the French system. She has since been devoting at- tention to a new species of amalgamated metal for guns, and has lately obtained valuable results fcom the use of gun-cotton for pieces specially Chap.l] OTHER COUNTBIES. 77 This result was the signal for a reconstruction of all the artillery of Europe. Impressed with its importance, England was the first of the great powers to follow the lead of France, and so rapid was her advance upon it, that specimens of her newly developed skill in the manufactory of rifled cannon, displayed at the Great Ex- hibition in London in 1862, called forth the imrestrained admiration of M. Treuille de Beaulieu, who acted as constructed of bronze. The Russians have followed the Austrians' example, and grooved their ordnance on a plan similar to that of the French. Sweden has done the same, thus superseding the inventions of her own countryman, Baron Waheendoef, and his coUaborateur Lieu- tenant Engsteobm. Holland, too, has introduced the French system, believing it to be (as it is described by M. TBEtriLLE de Beaulieu) ' easier procured, more economical, and less complicated ' than any other on the continent of Europe. Spain used guns rifled on the French system in her war against the Moors, especially at the siege jof Tetuan. Sardinia at first tried the breech-loaders of Catalli, during the siege of Gaeta, but alarmed by the numerous accidents incident to breech- loading, she abandoned it, and having first adopted the French rifling for field-guns, has now extended it to heavy artillery. Portugal and Suiitserland use muzzle-loaders rifled with grooves, whilst Prussia, availing herself of th« homogeneous iron manufactured by Kbcpp at Essen, adheres to breech-loading and lead-coated projectiles. Belgivm does the same, using Bessemee's steel, but adopting a slight modifica- tion of the Wahrendorf plan for closing the breech, which ' differs from the Armstrong in this, that while a little extra pressure forces the " vent-piece " of the latter away from the end of the bore, causing a dan- gerous escape of gas, the valve-face of the Wahrendorf stopper is more fully expanded, and the stopper pushed more tightly against the bolt that supports it in the bore of the gun' (Commander Scott, B. U. S. Joimal, xxi. p. 11, &e.). The- Americans originally inclined to breech-loading, but have latterly shown a disposition to abandon it, and to trust more to gims of extraordinary weight, preferring the bruising and smashing of ponderous shot to the quick penetration of rifled projectiles. Hence their Dahlgren guns and Columbiads throw shells of more than 300 lbs. each, with a range of 2,000 yards. They, however, rifle their smaller cast-iron guns, and strengthen them with hoops on the ' Parrot ' system, resembling that of Captain Blakelt. lUd. p. 16. 78 CANONS BAYEBS. {Fart Ui the commiasioner of France. Fascinated by the beauty of the English guns, and passing the most cordial eulogium on the surpassing quality and splendour of their workmanship, 'un luxe et une puissance d'outil- lage merveilleux,' * he accompanied his phrase by the consoling reflection that although no examples of French artillery were exhibited in competition with those of Armstrong and Whitworth, still its paramount influence was apparent, in these magnificent productions of its rivals.^ The remark, however true, embodied only a part of the truth ; for England, though thus suddenly stimulated to exertion, was impelled less by the performance of the 'canons rayees' of France, than by the recently developed powers of the rifle. The cooperation of artillery with infantry in the field rendered each a constituent element in our system of tactics ; and the alteration which raised the qualities of the one neces- sitated a corresponding change in the other. The invention of gimpowder was prejudicial to the personal skill of the soldier, by transferring to the mysterious powers of the new force that confidence which the archer had previously felt in his own ex- pertness in using the bow. No longer measuring strength in encounters in which each could attest his individual powers ; but on the contrary, trained to act against masses where it was next to impossible to observe the effect of individual skill, men had ceased to he ' Eapports du Jury International &o., torn, iv pp 4 10 ■" Ibid. p. 10. ' Chap. L] WIMBLEDON. 79 marksmen when equipped with no better weapon than the antiquated fire-lock. But now unexpectedly a new order of things had arisen ; and the soldier, armed with the improved rifle, was expected, not only to fii'e, but to hit the mark. To teach him this accomplishment, schools of musketry were established in the army, and under their influence came a revival of the long- dormant skill of the soldier, who soon acquired that confidence in himself which he had previously reposed in his musket. It became speedily apparent that if a man could be taught to hit ten times, who had previously hit but once in ten, the efficacy of infantry as a body must be held to be augmented in a similar ratio. ^ Military strategy thus became subjected to unavoidable readjust- ment. As battles have hitherto been fought, it was the practice for opposing forces to array themselves at dis- tances varying from 500 to 1,500 yards. At Waterloo the French and English armies were at first 1,200 yards apart ; but as musketry as well as grape-shot was unavailing at such a range, the assailants approached to within 200 or 300 yards of their opponents without ' Speaking of the rifle-shooting at Wimbledon in 1860, the IXmes of July 9th said, ' Already we have got the best weapon in the world, and already have we revolutionised the whole art of shooting. Foreigners, adepts in the work to which we are but apprenticing ourselves, and who came perhaps scorning such competitors, ended by casting away their own weapons and adopting ours. The Swiss rifleman has learned to look upon our Whitworth as a new power, and to desire its possession as a new sense. The weapons which were taken from these honest Switzers by the French (custom-house officers on their way to England to attend the Wimbledon match) will, if reclaimed, be valued only as ancestral curiosities.' 80 GENERAL JACOB. [Part a. suffering serious loss. All this required to be altered, the range of the musket being ten-fold enlarged, whilst power and precision had been increased in like pro- portion. Battalions can now be prostrated who ad- vanced in security before; tumbrils may be exploded half a mile away,' and artillery rendered unavailing by the exposure of the men to the fire of small arras, the 'hitting' range of which exceeds that of their own guns. Fieldworks themselves are no longer safe, for rifles that can kill at a thousand yards would have silenced the Eussian batteries at the Alma, and sent hardened bullets through the mantlets of Sebastopol. As this momentous change was not the result of any startling invention, nor the sudden discovery of any new agent or physical power, but on the contrary, was produced by the deliberate application of well- ascertained principles leading to the removal of former defects, the elimination of waste and the concentration of force ; it admitted of little doubt that by the judicious extension of this system, the same extensive develop- ment which had been manifested in small arms might with equal success be imparted to field-guns and heavy ordnance. Hence the engineers of England, even before Mr. Whitworth had fully completed his improve- ments in small arms, were actively alive to the necessity of enlarging the powers of artillery. The ordnance in use, at the period when, improve- ' General Jacob, in the course of his experiments at Jacobahad, fre- quently exploded tumbrils, packed as they usually are for service, at a distance of froni 1,200 to 1,800 yards. a«y. /.] THE LANCASTER GUN. 81 ment began, differed, in no essential particular from that employed during the wars of Napoleon ; and for rude- ness of construction, shortness of range, and un- certainty of aim, it was as primitive and obsolete as ' Brown Bess ' herself. One main cause of this station- ary condition of artillery during the last two centuries the Edinburgh Review in 1859 was disposed to discern in the fact ' of the manufacture of guns being wholly in the hands of military men ; no civilian being allowed to interfere, directly or indirectly, with any of the processes ; and the enormous stride that has since been so suddenly made simply arose from the fact, that the mechanical appliances of the day have for the first time been brought to bear upon the subject. ' ' Amongst the earliest, if not the first, who obtained distinction in this pursuit was Mr. Lancaster, who took out letters patent in 1850 for a gun, the chief peculiarity of which consisted in its having an oval, or rather a slightly elliptical bore,^ with an increasing rapidity in the twist as the spiral approached the muzzle of the gun. Like other hasty measures, the resort to which is attributable to the imperious demands of actual war, the Government incurred considerable expense in the manufacture of this gun; which was tried during the Crimean campaign. Of eight sent to Sebastopol, three burst during the siege; but these were not specially made for the occasion, being old service guns bored on the Lancaster system. Others, however, after- ' Edinburgh Review, August 1859, p. 526. - See a section of the Lancaster system of rifling, Part I. chap. iii. p. 44. 82 THE LANCASTEB GUN. {Fart U. BASHLET BRITTEN. wards underwent the same disaster at Shoeburyness. The cause of this catastrophe was probably to be traced to the unyielding nature of the first projectiles used, which, being made of wrought iron without ex- ternal fitting, were incapable of ac- commodating themselves to the 'in- creasing twist' of the barrel, and, by jamming, they burst the gun in the attempt.' This evil it was sought to correct at first by giving the projectile a ' skew ' corresponding to the direc- tion of the bore, and eventually by abandoning the accelerating spiral in field-guns; but the result has not been a success, and the Ordnance Select Committee have recently re- corded their opinion that the major axis of the ellipse of the projectile, when it begins to rotate, has a liability to overrun the spiral of the gun, and to pinch or act as a wedge with a tendency to burst it. Practically the system of Mr. Lancaster has been eclipsed ^by those of other competitors ; but looking to the characteristic simplicity of the elliptical bore, when ' The Lancaster guns at Sebastopol burst near the miwzle : 'on one occasion the whole muzzle was blown oflf by the increasing strain put upon it; but having got rid of this weak part, the gun continued to be used with safety and effect as a howitzer.' — Sir Howard Docglas, Naval Gti.nnerij, p. 21.5. LYNALL THOMAS. Chap. Z] RWLED ARTILLERY. 83 divested of the accelerating twist, it is possible, though not in immediate prospect, that it may yet be turned to practical • account. In the course of the next few years the number was considerable of men of mechanical talent who directed their attention with more or less assiduity to the question of rifled ordnance. Of these a large proportion were animated by the desire of applying to projectiles for ordnance the same power of expan- sion already communicated to balls for the rifled musket. Mr. Bashley Britten and Mr. Ljmall Thomas each took out patents in 1855 for projectiles, in which a conical cast-iron bullet had attached to it in rear a hollow belt of lead or other soft metal, which expands during the explosion of the gunpowder, and thus fills the grooves. In Mr. Lynall Thomas's system, the lead coat- ing is fixed mechanically, but in Mr. Bashley Britten's it is securely incor- porated with the iron by giving the latter a previous coating of zinc. Mr. Jeffery about the same time produced a projectile for cannon, much on the plan of the Minie bullet for small arms. Mr. Hadden, from a gun with three circular grooves, fired a non-expanding projectile cast with studs corresponding to the hollows in the bore ; and ABMSTKONG. 84 CAST IRON GUNS. {Fart 11. Commander Scott of the Eoyal Navy recommended one of an analogous construction, but in which the projec- tions were prolonged till they formed ribs or ' wings,' with long bearings. The modes of rifling were scarcely less numerous, exhibiting various modifications of grooves broad and shallow, angular and deep ; and in one, rotation was imparted by fillets or ribs raised upon the bore, which fitted into corresponding grooves in the projectile. Along with those already alluded to, were several aspirants whose inventions were entitled to equal consideration — Major Vandeleur, Mr. B. Irving, Mr. Lawrence, and others; but independently of the fact that want of space precludes any discussion here of the respective merits of their guns, they have been officially set aside for the present, whilst the attention of the authorities has been bent on the more conspicuous systems of Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth. The Committee on Rifled Gannon appointed by the Secretary of State for "War in 1858 to ascertain the best form u|) to that time offered, reported that from seven guns submitted to them, they placed the two above named in a class by themselves for competitive trials, considering farther experiments unnecessary with any of the others. And somewhat later when Lord Herbert, induced by the fact that some continental states had partially succeeded in applying rifling to old cast-iron cannon, instructed the Ordnance Select Com- mittee to make an extensive trial of 32-pounders by six different makers, in order to determine the best system for rifling the stock of smooth-bore gims then Chaf.l1 METAL. ■ 85 in store, their report was unfavourable to nearly all the competitors. In justice to them it must, however, be stated that, apart from any deficiencies in their several systems, want of success in this instance was mainly as- cribable to the inherent unsuitableness of the metal upon which they had to experiment. The result has been that down to the present time, the field has been left almost exclusively to Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth, the two great rivals who have so nobly contested it. The Committee above alluded to, whose Eeport was not made till 1863, represented their inability to recom- mend any one of the systems of rifling submitted to them as capable of being applied with safety to cast-iron guns, except under such restrictions as to charge as would limit them to use as howitzers. They recorded their distrust of cast iron generally as a material for rifled cannon, either for land or sea service. Of the plans for rifling submitted to them, they awarded the first place to that of Mr. Bashley Britten, on the ground of the com- paratively little strain on the gun caused by projectiles like his, fired with small charges of powder. Should the urgency of any crisis hereafter render it necessary to rifle cast-iron guns, they thought that it might be done on his system with less risk than any other, but they trusted that no emergency would ever arise such as would require the use of a material so precarious for the making of rifled artillery. Throughout the series of events and inventions thus briefly alluded to, it speedily became apparent that the question of material, which in the case of the soldier's musket niay be said to have been subordinate to that 86 METAL. [Part II. of mechanical skill, rose into paramount importance when the time had arrived for dealing with artillery, and applying a system of rifling to field-guns and heavy ordnance. In small arms, little difficulty existed consistently with the maintenance of a specified weight, in imparting strength to the barrel sufficient to control the force of such a charge as it was intended to contain ; but when it came to the construction of guns of great calibre, designed to hurl to vast distances projectiles of prodigious size, impelled by proportionate quantities of powder, the effect of successive discharges upon the metal were found to be so formidable as to necessitate farther enquiries into the manufacture and manipulation of iron and steel ; and thus they carried into the domain of the iron-master problems which had theretofore been treated only by the gun-maker and mechanic. In the art of gun-making the highest point to be attained is the construction of a piece of such strength as to curb the utmost force of whatever explosive compound can be used within it. So long as gunpowder is so ungovernable as to burst guns and mortars, so long must it be regarded as wanting in that perfect obedi- ence which is the first principle of effective service. The heau ideal of a perfect gun is one which will give the gunner the positive mastery over gunpowder ; in other words, a gun which cannot he bursV To realise this requires the combined action of two dis- tinct sciences— those of the metallurgist and the engi- neer : and the latter, it is clear, can always work up " See a Paper hj Mr. Longeidge, Mimiies of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1859-60, p. 4. . Z] CAST IRON. 87 to the utmost achievements of the former/ and furnish artillery whose performance and power is only limited by the endurance of the metal out of which it is made. And although perfection is dependent on other con- ditions besides the tenacity of the metal, such as the form of the bore, the configuration of the projectile, and the peculiarities of loading, still these latter will render but ineffectual service, unless combined with a material so strong and tenacious as to withstand the utmost violence of explosion. So long as smooth-bore cannon were alone in de- mand, the metal chiefly employed was cast iron, and to a limited extent bronze, or, as it was called, ' gun- metal,' which, though superior in uniformity of strength, was inferior to cast iron in hardness. But cast and un- hammered iron is always more or less porous, and in cast- ing a solid block to be afterwards bored as a gun, the exterior during the process of congelation, being chilled by sudden contact with the mould, is converted into a solid crust before the interior has yet been cooled below melting point. The consequence is, that the mass con- sists of various strata, each of a different density, and, as stated by Mr. Mallet, in a block of three or four inches diameter it is not unusual, even with the utmost care of the founder, to discover 'a central spongy portion, consisting of scarcely coherent crystals, so loose that dark cavities may be seen by the naked eye, and so soft that a sharp-pointed chisel of steel may be driven into it.' ' In the course of some experiments ' On the Fhysioal Conditions involved in the Construction of Artillery, London, 1856, p. 20. 88 CAST mON. {Fart II. conducted by the American G-overnment to test the quality of cast iron, an 18-pounder gun being sub- mitted to hydraulic pressure, the water sweated through the pores of the metal, forming small mounds of froth upon the outer surface, which eventually collected into drops and trickled off. These defects in cast iron have of course been more or less corrected by the ingenuity and expertness of those engaged in the manufacture, and the Americans have attained great success in counteracting them by casting cannon hollow and introducing a core, through the centre of which a stream of chill water is kept flowing during the process, so as to ensure a more uniform cool- ing of the metal, and thus contribute to the homoge- neity of the mass. Still no amount of improvement has sufl&ced to increase the strength of cast metal so as to render it a safe material for rifled artillery. Even where the piece does not burst at an early stage, it becomes shaken by each successive discharge, and manifests its weakness by small fissures around the vent, into which eventually the entrance of the gas tends to rend the piece asunder as if by a wedge. There are of course exceptional cases in which cast iron has done well. One 32-pounder is known to have fired 3,000 rounds at Sebastopol, and although the vent was enlarged, the bore remained sound and smooth. Hence, some officers of high authority, both military and naval, have protested against any precipitate con- demnation of a material which, notwithstanding cer- tain admitted defects, may yet be rendered worthy of confidence. It is likewise a curious fact, stated by Chav.I.I PROFESSOR TREADWELL. 89 practical men, that cast-iron guns in which the particles of metal have been disturbed by a few heavy charges will apparently rearrange and settle themselves after an interval of rest. And it is said that by allowing two or three months to intervene between the series of discharges, a very much greater number of rounds may ultimately be obtained with perfect safety; and, that cannon cast some years before testing stand a greater amount of firing than others cast but a few months previously.' Besides the inconvenience arising from additional weight, any attempt to reinforce the resisting powers of a cast-iron gun by adding to the thickness of the metal is known to be utterly ineffectual. Professor Barlow, of Woolwich, many years ago demonstrated that in hydrostatic presses the resistance of iron cylinders to internal pressure is not capable of being augmented by merely augmenting the thickness of their sides, and that beyond a certain point the ratio of strength falls enormously below the ratio of thickness. Professor Treadwell, of the Harvard University in Massachusetts, working out the physical principles of the same problem as applied to artillery, has shown that it is impossible to increase the strength of cast- iron cannon, in any useful degree, by any increase to their thickness beyond that usually'given to them, which, as a general rule, may be assumed to be equal to the calibre.^ To overcome this difiiculty, Treadwell recom- ' Commander Scott, E.N'., Roy. Unit. Service Journal, No. xxi. p. 19. ' Tkeadwuli., On the Construction of Cannon of great Calibre. Cam- bridge, Mass., 1856, p. 18. 90 lEON HOOPING. [Part U. mended that cast-iron guns should be encased with hoops of wrought iron, in layers placed one above the other, each with an increasing strain, so that the entire mass might oppose a combined resistance to the expansion oc- casioned by the explosive force of the gunpowder. > Like, almost every other process recently applied to the im- provement of ordnance, the idea of reinforcing guns by outward layers of wrought iron was not new. Colonel Treuille de Beaulieu states that it was pro- posed to the French Grovernment by M. Groupil in 1833, and tried by Colonel Frederick shortly after in Belgium.^ The principle has also been applied in this country by Captain Blakely of the Eoyal Artillery, who, in 1855, took out a patent for a ' Teeadwell's process is thus described by Mmself in a Paper printed by the American Academy, On the Fracticability of Construotinff Canncm, of great Calibre, capable ofendv/ring long-continued Use under fvU Charges, p. 19. 'Now, to obviate the great cause of weakness arising from the conditions before recited, and to obtain as far as may be the strength of wrought iron instead of that of cast iron for cannon, I propose the following mode of construction. I propose to form a body for the gim, containing the calibre and breech as now formed of cast iron, but with walls of only about half the thickness of the diameter of the bore. Upon this body I place rings or hoops of wrought iron in one, two, or more layers. Every hoop is formed with a screw or thread upon it^ inside to fit to a corresponding screw or thread formed upon the body of the gun first, and afterwards upon each layer that is embraced by another layer. These hoops are made a little, say j^th part of their diameters, less upon their insides than the parts that they enclose. They are then expanded by heat, and being turned on to their places, suf- fered to cool, when they shrink and compress, first the body of the gun, and afterwards each successive layer all that it encloses. This com- pression must be made such, that when the gun is subjected to the greatest force, the body of the gun and the several layers of rings will be distended to the fracturing points at the same time, and thus all take a portion of the strain up to its bearing capacity.' ' Rapports sur I'Exposition Universelle a Londres de 1862, torn. iv. p. 11. Chap. I.'] EARL OF E088E. 91 'method of forming guns with an internal tube of cast iron or steel inclosed in a case of wrought iron or steel, heated and shrunk upon the cylinder.' His specification explained that the substance of the patent consisted in rendering the internal diameters of the outer collars so much smaller than the external diameters of the iimer ones, that, after being cooled, the former maintain a uniform tension or permanent strain upon the latter. Captain Blakely's plan presents a remarkable analogy to the process of Treadwell, de- scribed in a previous page ; but the patentee has stated before the Ordnance Committee of the House of Com- mons, that between the two there is neither relation nor resemblance.' The Ordnance Select Committee in 1861 reported to Lord Herbert, then Secretary of State for War, that Captain Blakely's method, and no other, is the principle ' Evidence of the Select Committee of the Souse of Commons on Ord- nance, 1863, 4631, 4644. Mr. Maxlet, of Dublin, and Mr. Longeidge, were about the same time occupied by tlie same enquiry ; the latter substituting wire instead of the hoops recommended by TreadweD, or the coU. adopted by Captain Blakely. ' It was upon this principle that Mr. Mallet about 1855 built up the monster mortar of upwards of 50 tons weight with a diameter of three feet and throwing a sheE of 26^ ewt. But the experiments made with it at Woolwich showed a tendency to separation between the trunnions and the cascable; the expansive force of the powder causing the latter to yield; and openings having shown themselves between the hoops, it became necessary to discontinue firing from apprehensions of danger.' — Sir HowAED Douglas's Naval Gunnery, p. 174. The Earl of Eosse, speaking of this monster engine of war, in a recent conversation with Mr. Nassau Senioe, said such a shell would be in fact ' a flying mine'— its explosion would destroy every building in the vicinity of its fall, as its weight would render it impossible to remove it from the spot where it might light, and the tube of its fuse would emit off volumes of fire defying all attempts to extinguish it. 92 BLAKELY GUN. [Part 11. employed in the manufacture of the Armstrong guns, and it appears to them that whatever dispute there may be as to originality or priority of invention, and the use of terms between Captain Blakely and Sir W. Arm- strong, there is little or none in the matter of fact. 'Both make, or propose to make, strong guns in the same way ; nor is the principle in any way new.' ' Captain Blakely's system has not as yet been favour- ably regarded by the British Grovernment, and although, after evidence of its performance in 1855, two experi- mental guns were ordered by the War Ofi&ce, some considerable time was allowed to elapse before they were tried at Shoeburyness. The Ordnance Select Committee at length expressed their opinion in 1859, that ' taking into consideration the different expansive powers of wrought and cast iron, guns so constructed could never be considered safe, as they might at any time burst.' This they repeated in 1863, under the conviction that no external hooping can avert the con- sequences of the internal action of the gases on the softer metal, although it may render it less destructive, The external envelope, they say, no doubt assists cast iron to resist a strain when there are no fissures and no * rending ' action ; but this is not the ordinary cause of guns bursting, those destroyed being almost invarir^ ably condemned for the state of the metal round the vent. The first gun, however, which Captain Blakely produced in 1854, underwent a competitive trial with a cast-iron gun and a brass one, both in use in the ' See Appendix to the lieport of the Souse of Commons' Committee on Ordnance in 1863, p. 651. aap.I] FOEGED IRON. 9S service, in the course of which the cast-iron one gave way after 351 rounds, and the brass one after 479, whilst the Blakely stood 3,389 shots. Upwards of 400 guns on his plan have since been made in England, and 'thousands,' as the patentee states, in other countries, chiefly in France and the United States, where they were used in repelling the Federal attack upon Charles- town in the spring of 1863.' Captain Blakely, like many other inventors, complains of the reluctance which he found on the part of the Ordnance Select Committee at the War Office to subject his guns to a thorough trial, notwithstanding his offer to bear all the cost from his private resources. ^ Cast iron, whether singly or in combination with welded-coil hoops, being thus more or less discredited for the manufacture of heavy ordnance, attention was necessarily turned to forged or wrought iron as a safer, although a costlier substitute. But here, again, disappointment ensued. Various methods of forging and welding were tried, but, in practice, all failed to reduce the mass to a uniform density. In defiance of every precaution flaws occurred, which escaped de- tection under the keenest scrutiny; and these, when exposed to the searching force of gunpowder during explosion, ensured the ultimate destruction of the piece. The prodigious powers of the Nasmyth hammer, the blows of which descended with a weight of many tons, could not conquer the difficulty ; and the failure was felt ' Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ord- nance, 1863, 4750, 4752. ' Bee post, Part III. Conclusion, p. 314. 94 THE HOBSFALL GUN. [Part II. as a natioBal disappoiatment. In one signal instance the attempt to produce in this country a cannon of wrought iron on a grand scale was attended with ultimate success; but even here the security of the piece was attribu- table to its gigantic dimensions, and not to the absence of flaws. The instance alluded to is that of the great Horsfall gun. That formidable piece of artillery was made by the Mersey Company at Liverpool, and is one of the finest specimens of forging on a grand scale that this country has ever produced. It weighs upwards of 24 tons^ and has a smooth bore 13 inches in diameter, sufficient to discharge a spherical ball of more than 300 lbs. weight. The idea of making this monster cannon originated, like many others, during the anxieties of the Crimean campaign, but the gun itself was not finished till some time after the war had closed. Conformably to the intention of the company by whom it was manufactured, it was generously pre- sented by them to the nation, on the sole condition that it should be used against an enemy. Some years were spent in bootless correspondence with the War Office and the Admiralty relative to compliance with forms then rigorously enforced, but since altered, with reference to trials and charges ; but at last in 1862, the gun which had already crushed and broken up iron of 4| inches thick was moved to Shoeburyness, to have its prodigious powers of crushing iron plate farther tested against the Warrior target.' On the 16th September 1862, it was laid at a range ' See the memorable proceedings of this day, described Part III, chap. IV. p. 288. Chap. I.} THE H0R8FALL GUN. 95 of 200 yards, and with a charge of 75 lbs. of powder, it sent a solid cast-iron projectile weighing 280 lbs., with a velocity of upwards of 1,100 feet in a second, through the central plate of a target formed of 18 inches of teak covered by 4^ inches of iron, and lined with 1 inch of the same. The shot tore open a hole more than two feet in diameter, and caused rents and fractures in numerous directions. By the force of the concus- sion bolts were started, and portions of the broken shot mingled with fragments of iron-plate were driven deep into the bulkhead behind. Ten days after, the experiment was repeated with a similar charge, but at a range of 800 yards. Here, whilst the velocity was duly maintained, the accuracy of the gun proved inferior to its power, and out of four rounds, two failed to strike. One rebounded from the earth with such force as to lodge in the target, breaking through the iron-armour at the juncture of two plates, in each of which it caused an extensive fracture, burying itself in the timber behind, bulging out the skin and rending the ribs, but it failed to penetrate fairly ' within the ship.' The last shot struck the upper corner of the target and broke away a fragment two feet in length by eighteen inches deep.' It is remarkable that the Horsfall gun had amongst other original flaws of more or less magnitude, one thir- teen inches long, and although these remained but little affected, it remains to be seen how far the gun could ' The injuries caused by these shots are shown upon the Frontis- 96 HOMOGENEOUS IRON. [Part IL endure more prolonged firing. The experiment thus demonstrated the capability of smooth-bore wrought^ iron guns of great size, when properly forged, to endure very large charges of powder when firing spherical shot; but beyond this, no new fact was elicited, the power of any large gun sufSciently strong to inflict destructive injuries at short ranges having been pre- viously known. Solid iron in any form, produced in this country at that time, whether of casting or forging, being thus found unsafe for the manufacture of heavy artillery,' there appeared to be only one alternative, namely, to build up heavy guns by arranging hoops of homo- geneous metal and welded-coil iron around an inner tube of steel ; so that the interior of the barrel, whilst it bears the first shock of the explosion, is fortified against the effects of the strain by the tension and support of the outer concentric layers. Hopes were confidently entertained that British enterprise would sooner or later raise the manufacture of cast steel to the same degree of excellence which it had already attained in Prussia. And the efforts to provide a substitute made in the meantime by the two great inventors who have given their names to the Arm- strong and Whitworth systems respectively, will come under notice in the following chapters.^ ' See Sir WrLMAM Armstuono's Paper on the Construction of WrougU-Iron Sifted Fidd-Qmw. Appendix to the Eeport of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 158. * See the process of forming welded coil, as adopted by Sir Willum Aemsteong, Part II. chap. ii. p. 106; and the method of forging the homo- geneous iron, used for the gims of Mr.WnrrwoRTH, Part II. chap. v. p. 1 77. CHAPTER II. THE AEMSTEONG GUN. WHILST Mr. Whitworth was occupied in 1854 in investigating the elements of the system which he applied with so much success to the rifle ; a com- petitor, who has since attained high distinction in the same field, was sedulously engaged in searching for the means of extending an equivalent improvement to artillery. Sir William George Armstrong, a descendant of one of the old Border families, was educated for the profession of the law. His own tastes inclined him to be an engineer rather than a jurist, but unlike many another similarly circumstanced, who Penned a stanza when he should engross, he devoted himself resolutely to his adopted pursuit ; and till he was thirty-seven years of age, he practised with success as member of one of the most eminent legal firms in Newcastle. Still, the portion of his life which he passed in his ofiSce forms but an episode in his career : the passion for mechanical science which he manifested even in his boyhood,' he continued to cherish ' A biographical notice of Sir William G. Armsteong, C.B., which appeared in the London Review, May 3, 1862, says: 'From his cradle nature formed him for an engineer. All his childish amusements had H 98 8IE WILLIAM ARMSTRONG. {Part IL concurrently with his legal pursuits, and eventually he ■withdrew from the one to devote himself exclusively to the study of the other. His earliest distinction as an engineer he achieved while still practising as a solicitor. It is connected with an incident, the influence of which is highly indi- cative at once of the bent and the capacity of his mind. During an excursion in a mountainous district of York- shire about the year 1835, his attention was attracted to the waste of power in a stream which, after descend- ing from a considerable hei ht in successive cascades and rapids, exhausted the last remnant of its power in turning a mill-wheel at the foot of the hill. Althoiigh the force required was dependent on the altitude or ' head ' from which the water came, he ob- served that the portion in use was taken from a level which formed less than a twentieth part of the whole descent. Struck with the inadequacy of a single wheel as a means of realising the full power of such a fall, and perceiving the practicability of rendering the entire head available by condutting the water in an iron pipe,' and causing it to act upon suitable machinery below, he applied himself to devising an engine to be worked by water-pressure.' Such was the origin of the hydrauUc relation to mechanics. He used to employ himself when onlj five or six years old in setting a number of spinning wheels in motion by means of weights descending on strings from top to bottom of his father's house, and in making these wheels perform imitations of pumping water, grinding com,' &e. &c., p. 418. ' See a Faper on Water-Pressure Machiiiery, by Mr. William G. Armsteong of Newcastle, in the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Birmingham, 18,58, p. 127. Chap. II.] HYDRAULIC ENGINES. 99 crane, and other forms of machinery of the same class, of which he became the author ; and although the idea had previously occurred to others, and attempts had been made to render water subservient to like objects in Hungary, as well as in the mines of Saxony and Cornwall, former appliances for this purpose were not only unknown to Sir William Armstrong, but they were 80 entirely different from his own, that his merit as an inventor remains incontestable.' From the first idea of taking advantage of mountain streams, he proceeded to avail himself of the force residing in town supplies of water drawn from considerable elevations, and this led eventually to the construction of towers into which water was raised by the steam-engine in order to give the re- quired ' head.' In addition to cranes for loading and un- loading ships in tbegreatdocks at Liverpool, London, and elsewhere, the newly organised power has been applied amongst many other purposes to the opening and closing of dock-gates, swing-bridges, and sluices, which it effects with a rapidity limited only by considerations of safety or convenience. ' At the foot of every crane,' says a writer in a recent number of the Quarterly Review, ' under the piston of every hoist, at every dock gate, unseen and noiseless, the power lies dormant : but a woman's hand, applied to a small handle, will set in motion a force sufficient to raise a mass weighing fifty ' Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Sept. 1842, p. 143. Bid. May 7, 1850. A Paper by William Gbobqe Akmsteons, Esq., On the Application of Water-Pressure as u. Motive Power for working Cranes and other descriptions of -Machinery. H 2 100 SIS WILLIAM ABMSTBONG. [Part IL or one hundred tons, and either to place it in the hold of a ship, or deposit it in any spot within reach of the arms of the crane. With equal ease the gates of locks 100 ft. in width are opened or shut, and the smallest as well as the heaviest works of the dockyard done without a stranger being able to perceive what it is that sets everjrthing in motion.' ' The success of this invention was the turning-point in Sir William Armstrong's career. ' Up to this period,' says a local journal,^ in a biographical sketch of its distiuguished townsman, ' he had been following the pro- fession of a solicitor, but his strong bias for mechanical and scientific pursuits, and the successful results of his hydraulic crane, led him to relinquish that profession, and, in conjunction with a few friends, who cooperated with him, to commence the Elswick Engine Works, which have since grown into one of the largest and most important establishments in the kingdom.' ' In the autumn of 1840 another subject caught his attention. A jet of steam was by chance escaping from a fissure in some cement of chalk and oil placed round the safety-valve of a steam-boiler on a railway near Newcastle. It was found to be charged with electricity. Sir William was happily one of the first observers of this then unknown phenomenon. A long series of experiments was the result; and at last he succeeded in making his well-known hydro-electric machine, the most powerful means ever devised for ' Quarterly 'Review, Nov. 1863. ^ The Gateshead Observer, Mareh 12, 1859. Chap. 77.] SIR WILLIAM ARMSTRONG. 101 producing frictional electricity. For these successful labours he was elected, at an unusually early age, a Fellow of the Eoyal Society.' ^ Such were the pursuits in which he was engaged, when England was disquieted by those rumours of disasters in the Crimea, which suflBced for a time to fright tlie isle from her propriety. The fate of the battle of Inkerman in November 1854 was decided by two 18-pounder guns, which by almost superhuman efforts were got up late into the field, and these, by their superior range, were effectual in silencing the Eussian fire.^ Sir William Armstrong was amongst those who perceived that another such emergency could only be met by imparting to field-guns the accuracy and range of the rifle ; and that the impedi- ment of weight must be removed by substituting forged instead of cast-iron guns.' With his earliest design for the realisation of this conception, he waited on the Secretary for War in December 1854, to propose the enlargement of the rifle musket to the standard of a field gun, and to substitute elongated projectiles of lead instead of balls of cast iron. Encouraged by the Duke of Newcastle, he put together his first wrought-iron gun in the spring of 1855. But a considerable time elapsed > London Review, May 3, 1862, p. 418. - Eussell's British Expedition to the Crimea, p. 205. " In the course of his examination before the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance in 1863 ; Sir William Aemsteong has em- bodied a brief history of the whole of the transactions connected ■with his system of rifled ordnance ; which will be read with deep interest. It occurs at p. 133 et seq. of the published Report and Evidence. 102 NYCT08C0PE. [Part 11. before he considered it in a condition to be brought officially under the notice of the Grovernment. The gun did not spring Minerva-like and perfect from his brain. It was the product of deep reflection', indomit- able perseverance, and thoughtfully elaborated experi- ments, extending over a period of nearly three years, during which he had to struggle with all the usual initial difficulties. At a banquet given in his honour at Newcastle in 1859, he stated that in summer his first trials were conducted about dawn, upon the sea- shore of Northumberland, where the range was free from intrusion ; and that during other seasons of the year he occupied a solitary hut amongst the moors at an elevation of 2,000 feet ; his target being placed upon the side of a valley, across which he fired his projectiles by night as well as by day, being enabled to maintain his fire upon an object after darkness had set in, by means of the nyctoscope, an ingenious instrument of his own invention.' Of six guns which he was authorised by the Minister for War to construct, the first, a 3-pounder, was reported on in November 1855 by the War Office Select Committee, who recommended further experiments on a larger scale. It was re-bored up to a 5 -pounder, and ' The principle of the instrument, as described by himself, was to render the image of an object in the rear, or at one side, visible upon a vertical line in a mirror, when the gun was laid upon the true object. A lamp attached at night to the false object became visible upon the same mark in the mirror, when the gun was in line with the object aimed at The vertical adjustment for elevation was effected by a spirit-level clino- meter, forming part of the instrument. Chap. II] LORD PANMTJRE. 103 fired at Shoeburyness with marked success both in accuracy and range. A second, an 18-pounder, was submitted for trial in 1858, and the results were so unex- pected that Colonel Mitchell of the Eoyal Artillery, in a special report, notwithstanding his scruples as to breech-loading, stated that this gun ' appeared to afford a reasonable expectation that artillery might not only regain that influence in the field, of which to a certain extent the recent improvement in small arms had deprived it, but that that influence might be materially increased.' ' Lord Panmure, then at the head of the War Department, regarded the new piece as ' a most valuable contribution to our army, and the ex- periments being conclusive as to the flight and accu- racy of the projectiles,' he gave orders that three more guns should be prepared, a 12-pounder and two 18- pounders, together with the necessary projectiles, 'to be handed over to the artillery to knock about, and be reported upon as to their endurance of work, in com- parison with our service guns.' ^ With these, and with a .32-pounder and others of the same construction, trials were made, which towards the close of 1858 led to the adoption of the Armstrong gun for special service in the field, under circumstances which will be presently adverted to. Meanwhile it is necessary to give some account of a gun which has excited such high hopes, and which occupies so distinguished a posi- tion in the annals of artillery. ' Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commo^is on Ordnance, 1862, App. p. 165. 2 Ibid. p. 156. 104 FXONGATED SHOT. [Part U. The earliest aim of its inventor was the production of a field-piece, constructed for loading at the breech, with mechanical appliances to facilitate the pointing of the gun and counteract the recoil. His first concep- tion was to have elongated projectiles of lead, or lead hardened by an admixture of antimony or tin; hut discovering their liability to distortion, he finally adopted a projectile of iron coated with lead, to which rotation is imparted by its being forcibly driven during the explosion into the numerous grooves with which the bore is rifled. But as the substitution of a cylindrical bolt for a spherical ball,and the force required to project it through a barrel slightly contracted towards the muzzle, involved the necessity of strengthening the gun to enable it to resist the increased strain and impart the required velocity — the attention of Sir William Armstrong was early directed to the selection of a metal possessed of greater ttenacity than that of cast or ordinary wrought iron. Steel has nearly double the tensile strength of the latter, and more than seven times that of cast iron ; but in the state of the manufacture as it then existed, it was considered to be unreliable in a mass of sufficient size for large guns. Besides, both in it and in shear-steel, Sir William Armstrong was of opinion that the tenacity was always less in a lateral than in the ' longitudinal direction ; whereas lateral strength was the high essential of a cannon. Eeverting therefore to the practice adopted in making musket barrels of twisting bars of iron into spiral tubes and forging them, Sir Chap. 11.] STEEL. 1(>5 William resorted to a similar process, but on a greatly enlarged scale. In malleable iron when drawn into bars, the particles assume a fibrous form, somewhat re- sembling a bundle of threads strongly adhering to each other and possessing their chief tenacity in the direction of their length. Availing himself of this well-known property, he proceeded to coil iron bars of sufficient thickness into cylinders, which he afterwards welded into solid hoops, by which 'means the longitudinal strain of the slips becomes opposed to the explosive force of the powder ; and the weldings being transverse with the bore, have no important influence in lessen- ing the strength of the barrel.' ^ Steel being a harder substance than iron, and there- fore more adapted to form the surface of the bore and receive the rifling, he at first applied it in the form of a tube for the inner lining ; obtaining the necessary strength by encircling it with welded hoops shrunk on with initial tension on the principle laid down by Treadwell,^ and adopted with more or less variation by ' Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 158. Sir W. Gr. Aemsteong's Address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Sheffield, August 1861. ^ See ante. Part ii. ch. i. p. 89. Like almost every ottier element in the construction of fire-arms, the adoption of ' welded coil ' for artillery has given rise to a contest as to priority of invention, in the course of which Capt. Blakely not only claims precedence for himself, hut alleges that Sir. LoNGEiDGE and Mr. Mallet had both used it before Sir William Akmsteong applied it to his rifled cannon. (See Capt. Blaxbly's Evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863, 4,627, &c., 4,624, 4,638, &c.) Its application by the French to making the tires of wheels for locomotive engines appears to have taken place some years before its adoption for cannon in this country. 106 WELDED COIL. {Fart 11. others. He afterwards made the inner tube, as well as the external hoops, of coiled iron; but mature ex- perience has demonstrated the superiority of steel.' The process of welding the coils for a 25-pouiider gun is thus described by a writer in the Times : <■ In one corner of the Eoyal factory is a long narrow furnace, in which are placed bars of the finest wrought iron, two inches square and forty feet long. In the manufacture of a 100-pounder Armstrong gun, these would be re- quired of no less than 90 feet in length. In front is a roller, round which a bar, directly it is of a white heat, is wound slowly out of an aperture in the door of the furnace. When the whole has been coiled as close as TJie Ordnance Select Committee of the War Office, as has already been stated (p. 91) declare the two methods to he identical. The Butterley Company in Derbyshire, who manufacture for Captain Blakely, on being admitted to inspect the process at Woolwich, said in his presence that the plan was precisely that on which they had been making guns under his direction since 1855. {lb. 4,627, 4,638, 4,676.) Proceedings were attempted by him to contest the validity of Sir W. Aemstkong's patent, when he was advised to desist, on the grounds that the alleged infringement being the act of servants of the crown, an action could not be sustained by a subject. {lb. 4,665, 4,670). As to the question of originality or priority Sir William has met it frankly by the following declaration : — ' my gun is peculiar in being mainly com- posed of tubes, or pipes, or cylinders, formed by coiling spirally long bars of iron into tubes, and welding them upon the edges, as is done in gun barrels. Now, whether any one liad conceived that idea before, is beyond my power to say, but I feel assured that no gun wp to that time had been actually made wpon that principle. The whole diflSculty lay in the making. It is very easy now with all our knowledge and expe- rience, to define how such coils are to be made ; but at that period, it was a very difficult matter to accomplish, and it was not until I had made very many unsuccessful attempts, that I succeeded in satisfactorily carrying, it out.' Evidence &e. 3,163, p. 133. ' Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance 1862, Evidence 1843, 1849, 3,163, 3,507, &e. Chap. //.] BREECH LOADING. 107 possible, the roller is turned on end ; and the coil, having then much the appearance of a flattened cork- screw three feet long, is wheeled away to another furnace, where it is heated to a bright white, placed in a case of iron under a steam hammer, and welded by tremendous blows till it becomes about two feet six inches l^ng. Three of such tubes are sufficient for a 25-pounder gun,' ' and are united by welding the joints. On the first appearance of the Armstrong gun nothing more materially conduced to its extraordinary popu- larity than the circumstance of its loading at the breech instead of the muzzle. Not that there was any novelty in the idea ; for the Chinese from time immemorial have had guns so constructed, and almost every European nation has at one time or other occupied itself with the attempt. In England within the last century upwards of 120 patents have been taken out for breech-loading small arms, and 40 for artillery. Even as regards the form of its introduction, Scoffern says the system of Sir William Armstrong very closely resembles a breech- loading cannon now in the Tower, taken from the • wreck of the war ship the ' Mary Eose,' which foundered in the reign of Henry VIII. ; and Smiles, in his Indus- trial Biography, says the museum of the arsenal at Venice contains a specimen dredged up from the Adriatic which embodies the same idea in a very rude form.*" ' Tiines, January 24, 1860. ^ See Sooffeen's Projectile Weapons of War, p, 340. Sir Howabd Douglas, Naoal Gunnery, p. ,196. 108 THE AMM8TB0BG GUN. [Part U. In Sir William Armstrong's case, however, breech- loading instead of a matter of choice became a matter of necessity as soon as he had decided on rifling a lead- coated projectile by forcing it by a pressure equal to several tons ' into the grooves of the barrel, since in order to ensure its filling the bore it was indispensable to make the projectile of a greater diameter than would THE AEMSTEONG GUN. enter the muzzle. The plan which he adopted was the attachment at the rear of the gun of a powerful screw, which, having a hole through the centre so as to render it a prolongation of the bore, admits the introduction of the projectile with a cartridge and greased wad;" and these being deposited within, a vent-piece * with a ' Commander Scott, E.N., in a Paper on Naval Ordnance in the Eoi/. Unit. Serv. Journal, vol. \: p. 427, says that the plan of rifling the projectiles for cannon by compression was first adopted and perfected by the Prussians. ^ Sir W. Aemsteong's Speech at the Institut. of Civil Engineers, ]?eh. 1860. ^ So multifarious are the claims of rival inventors, that the right of Sir WrLLiAM Armstrong to the invention of the ' vent -piece ' has heen called in question ; and it is said that there is a French gun in the Museum at Woolwich with a vent-piece, which is said to be identical Chop. 77.] THE AEM8TB0NG GUN. 109 mitred face, fitting a corresponding mitre at the end of the bore, is dropped into a recess, against which the great screw- exerts its pressure, and closes the breech.' In the earlier Armstrong guns it waS necessary that the portion of the bore which was occupied by the projectile should be perfectly clean, otherwise the shot would not enter freely, and water had to be freely used in consequence ; but in the guns now issued for service, a slight alteration in the bore has enabled the greased wad to be applied with perfect effect, in substitution for sponging — an expedient first adopted byMr.Whitworth, when trying his rifled brass guns at Shoe- ] buryness in 1859. With respect to the vent-piece. Sir William Armstrong intimated at an early period, that it is not expected to have the -;__, same durability as the gun ; besides it *-M obtains its name from its being made to 1 -jfiS* Tpjtli that in the Armstrong gun. The J Edinburgh Review for April 1859 says, J t 'The Armstrong "vent-piece" is under- stood to have been used hy the Prussians, and by others in this country, before being adapted to his gun,' p. 530. ' In the accompanying sketch and diagram, the breech-screw is shown at SECTION OF THE AKMSTEONG A, and at B the vent-piece and touch- ™N. hole c. 110 VENT-PIECES. {Part 11. contain the touch-hole, which being the most perishable part of all ordnance, it is better, rather than insert it in the body of the gun itself, to place it where it can easily be renewed. Two vent-pieces are attached to each gun, so thai if one of them be disabled, the other is ready to replace it. The breech-loading apparatus is undoubtedly the most assailable portion of the Armstrong system, and profoundly scientific engineers professed to discern in its conception the genius of the accomplished amateur rather than the sagacity of the practically educated mechanic. They contended that the ' slot ' for the admission of the vent-piece renders that region, which ought to be the strongest, the weakest portion of the gun, and they urged that by making the breech-screw hollow, the vent- piece which has to resist the full fury of the explosion, instead of being fortified behind at every point by a buttress of solid metal, has no other support than the rim of the iron cylinder, containing the hollow breech-screw ; which therefore acts merely as an annular prop round the circumference, but is in- sufficient to prevent distortion at the centre, where the vent-piece is inadequately supported by it. Still, even in the heyday of popularity, there were those who hesitated to accept the theory of breech-loading cannon under any form or construction. Its complexity was thought to overcome its advantages : ' the fact was persistently pointed to, that although other countries bad for centuries been in search of the ' Edinbti/rgh Eeview, April 1859, p. 530. Chap. 11] MB. WE8TLEY BICHAEDS. Ill same object, no military power in Europe had yet produced a successful breech-loading gun. On the other hand, it was contended that incipient disappoint- ment was not hastily to be confounded with ulti- mate failure, in an experiment by no means exhausted, and the successful issue of which held out the prospect of so many advantages. The risk of accidents from improper loading would be reduced by it, and injury or decay in the piece might be arrested from the increased facilities for detection. Ease and rapidity of firing would be vastly enhanced, especially at sea, where the difficulty is augmented by the motion of the ship ; besides which, both there and behind batteries the necessity for exposure of the men is avoided, and the security increased of those serving the guns. ' I am not aware,' says Mr. Westley Eichards, himself a high authority, ' of a single qualification belonging to a muzzle-loading gun that may not be possessed in an equal degree by a good breech-loader, in addition to those peculiar to itself, if they can be realised.' ' This consummation, however, Mr. Westley Eichards regrets has not yet been attained even by Sir William Arm- strong, in whose gun, he says, there are ' defects ad- mitted in the construction of the breech, whence acci- dents have not unfrequently occurred by the escape of gas and the breaking or blowing away of vent-pieces. This failure, however, is not to be attributed to breech- ' Westley RiCHAKDS On Breech-Loading for Military Weapons, p. 14. Sir William Abmsteong has given in detail his own views of the advantages of hreeeh-loading ; in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863, p. 138. 112 RIFLING. [Po-^f Jl- loading as a system, but to the construction of a par- ticular gun.' ' In like manner Captain Blakely, himself an advocate of breech-loading, and regarding it as ' very desirable if we could get it; is not acquainted with any system yet divulged on which he could place great reliance; and he objects to the Armstrong breech- loader because the vent-piece 'is only a valve, and the first principle of every valve being that the internal pressure should render the valve tighter. Sir William's is a diametrically opposite system,' the tendency of the interna] force being to open instead of to close it.2 The rifling of the Armstrong service gun consists of spiral grooves forming what is termed a 'fluted bore.' The number of grooves he has varied from eight in the first 3-pounder to thirty-eight in the 9- pounder field-gun, and seventy-six in the seven-inch bore, called a 100- EIFLING OF THE pOUndCr.^ ' It is an error,' says the Belgian General Borman, in his work on The. Shrapnel Shell, ' to suppose that the value of a system of ordnance depends on the gun alone ; whether with a smooth or a rifled bore, the projectile has always a more extended influence than the piece which throws ' "Westley EicHAEDS On Br ecch-Loading for Military Weapons, p. 14. ^ 'Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863. Evidence 4,682. ■' The rifling of the Wahrendorf gun resembles that adopted by Sir W. Armstrong. ABMSTEONG NINE- POUNDEE. Chap. II.} GYROSCOPE. 113 it.' This truth was consistently kept in view by Sir William Armstrong, and the configuration of his pro- jectiles, whether solid or hollow, has been uniformly calculated to take advantage of the principle that an elongated shot admits of increase to the weight, with- out augmenting the resistance of the air by increasing the sectional area. The forms of projectiles which he tried were exceedingly numerous, and he came to the conclusion that the one best adapted for accuracy is that which is the nearest practicable approach to a plain . cylinder, with flat or nearly rounded ends.' But his aim was mainly directed to construct such a hollow projectile as would unite in itself the several ' Beport of the Select Committee of the House of Cow/inons on Ord- nance, W62. Appendix, p. 160. In the course of his experiments on the rotation of his projectiles occasioned by the rifling, Sir William Aem- STEONG has recorded the following curious observation : ' The peculiar influence of rotation in giving persistency of direction to the axis ofapro- j ectile is entirely distinct from that which it also possesses of correcting the tendency to aberration arising from irregular form or density ; and in order to investigate experimentally the nature of this action, I constructed an apparatus by which a cylindrical bullet could be put into extremely rapid rotation, and be then suspended in a manner which left it free to turn in any direction. When thus suspended, the rotating hullet exhibited the same remarkable properties as are possessed by the revolving disc in the recently-invented instrument called the Gyroscope. When pressure was applied to either end of the axis, the movement which took place was not in the direction of the pressure, but at right angles to it. Thus a vertical pressure deflected the axis horizontally, while lateral pressure deflected it vertically. But the important point elicited was this, that the time required to produce these indirect movements became greater as the . velocity was increased, and, consequently, that the amount of deflection produced in a given time hy a given pressure, diminished as the rotation was accelerated. Now, aU disturbing forces which operate upon a projectile during its flight must necessarily be of very short continuance, and can therefore have but little influence in diverting the axis when thus stiffened by-rapid rotation.' I lU SEGMENT SHELL. [PartH. characteristics of solid shot — - shrapnel and canister ; and this he accomplished by the production of his ' seg- ment shell,' which can best be described in the language of its inventor : — ' It consists of a very thin cast-iron shell, the interior of which is composed of forty-two segment-shaped pieces of cast iron, built up in layers around a cylindrical cavity in the centre, which con- tain the bursting charge and the concussion arrange- ment. The exterior of the shell is thinly coated with lead, applied by placing the shell in a mould, and pouring melted lead around it. The lead is also allowed to percolate among the segments, so as to fill up the interstices, the central cavity being kept open by the insertion of a steel core. In this state the projectile is so compact that it may be fired through six feet of hard timber, without injury ; while its resistance to a bursting force is so small, that less than one ounce of powder is sufficient to break it in pieces. When this projectile is to be used as a shot, it re- quires no preparation, but the expediency of using it in any case otherwise than as a shell, is much to be doubted. To make it available as a shell, the bursting- tube, the concussion arrangement, and the time-fuse, are all to be inserted ; the bursting-tube enteriag first and the time- fuse being screwed in at the apex. If then the time-fuse be correctly adjusted, the shell will explode when it reaches within a few yards of the object ; or failing that, it will burst by the concus- sion arrangement when it either strikes the object, or grazes the ground near it. Again, if it is to act as CUp. 77.] THE HOLLjLND SHELL. 115 " canister " upon an enemy close to the gun, the regula- tor of the time-fuse must be turned to zero on the scale, and the shell will then burst at the instant of quitting the gun. In every case the shell, on bursting, spreads into a cloud of pieces, each having a forward velocity equal to that of the shell at the instant of fracture.' ' One of these shells having been burst in a closed chamber where the pieces could be collected, they con- sisted of 106 pieces of cast iron; 99 pieces' of lead; and 12 pieces of fuse, &c., making in all 217 pieces. It was no uncommon thing for one of them to make 100 holes in a column of targets, at a distance of 3,000 yards, and as a large proportion of the pieces was de- rived from the lead, it would be seen that the lead added greatly to the efficiency of the shell.' ' The merits of this remarkable missile are incontestable, and the House of Commons of 1863 have stated in their report that the testimony was unanimous in describing it ' as the most destructive weapon ever used against ' Sir William Aemsteong's Speech at the Institution of Civil Engineers, Februaiy 1860. Like so many other points connected with the recently improved construction of ordnance, the originaKty of the time-fuse invented by Sir William Aemsteong for his ' segment shell ' has been contested by General Boemann of the Belgian service, who asserts that he was the first inventor, although he admits that Sir William intro- duced modifications in order to adapt it to his own shell. In the justice of this claim the Ordnance Select Committee, to whom Greneral Boemahn's complaint was submitted in 1850, do not concur. I observe that, in November 1854, John Simon Holland obtained a patent for ' shells made with small segmental pieces of metal, closely packed in layers between the outer case and the bursting charge.' See Abridgement of Specifications, ^c, p. 186. I 2 116 RECOIL SLIDE. [Part II. wooden ships, and the most formidable in range and effect.' ' Mr. "Whitworth, in the course of a discussion at the Institution of Civil Engineers in February 1860, intimated that a similar effect is produced in shell fired from his own gun, by scoring the iron tube in segments internally, instead of building it up, on the plan adopted by Sir William Armstrong, of distinct pieces cemented by lead. When fired, a shell so pre- pared was broken into ' any desired number of frag- ments, according to the grooves inside ; and the size of these fragments could be regulated so as to render them effective projectiles.' The field-carriage of the Armstrong gun shows as much ingenuity as the gun itself, for in addition to an improved form of the elevating screw, there is a horizontal screw which enables the gun to be turned in 'azimuth,' as an astronomer would say, and with all the precision of an astronomical instrument.^ The first guns made by Sir William were fitted up with a ' recoil slide,' up the inclined plane of which the gun glided when fired, descending to its original position by its own gravity after each discharge. This was afterwards abandoned in field-pieces, but was used in the navy, where it is a point of great importance that a breech-loading gun should be self-acting in this particular, to obviate the employment of hands in running it out. ' To these,' says a writer of that period in the Edin- ' Seport, ^c, p. 8. - Edinburgh Eeview, April 1859, p. 531. CUp. 7Z] EANGE. 117 burgh Review, ' are added several minor adjustments which are tedious to describe, but the result of which is, that from being the rudest of weapons artillery has been advanced to be nearly on a par mechanically with the steam-engine or the power-loom ; and it differs as essentially from the old cast-iron tube dignified with the name of a gun, as the railway train of the present day differs from the stage-coach of our forefathers.' ' The workmanship and material of the gun first sub- mitted to the Grovernment were pronounced by the War Office authorities to be ' so superior that nothing equal in these respects could be looked for in the ordinary supply ' ^ from the Eoyal factories ; and its performance as far surpassed that of its predecessors, as it excelled them in ingenuity. Whilst the range of the old pieces could not be relied on beyond 1,000 yards, if so far, the Armstrong 32-pounder made good practice at 2,000 yards, and with a charge of 5 lbs. of powder, threw shot and shell upwards of Jive English miles. From a distance of 1,000 yards it pierced a bulk of elm three feet thick, and in one instance sent a bolt 400 yards beyond it after passing through the timber. As compared with an ordinary 9-pounder field-piece, the mean difference of range in the Arm- strong was as 23 yards to 147, and the mean lateral deviation 0'8 of a yard compared to 9-1 yards ; ' in other words, the Armstrong could hit a target 2 ft. 6 in. ' Edinburgh Beview, April 1859, p. 532. ■ '■' Report of the Ordnance Select Committee to the Secretary for War, July 14, 1855. 118 GENEEAL FEEL. {Partm in diameter at 1,000 yards, whilst the service gun could not be relied on to hit a haystack.' ' The Secretary of State for War, General Peel, when describing the performance of the Armstrong gun in the House of Commons in the session of 1859, said its ' accuracy at 3,000 yards was as seven to one compared with that of the common gun at 1,000 ; whilst at 1,000 yards it would hit an object every time which was struck by the common gun only once in fifty-seven times ; so that at equal distances the Armstrong gun was fifty-seven times as accurate as our ordinary artil- lery.' ^ ' Edinburgh Beview, April 1859, p. 529. ' General Peel, Speech in the House of Commons, March 4, 1859. 119 CHAPTEE III. THE WHITWOETH aUN — ADOPTION OF THE AEMSTEONG GUN BT THE WAR DEPARTMENT. WITH the completion of the Whitworth rifle, as described in a previous chapter, its author, strong in his conviction as to the truth of the principle on which it was formed, felt conscious of having pos- sessed himself of a system susceptible of extension to ordnance of the largest calibre not less than to muskets of the smallest bore. As Milton says, apropos of his own theory of the discovery of artillery, the origin of which he ascribes to the real hero of his grand epic, — The invention all admired ; and eaeli, how he To be the inventor missed : — so easy it seem'd Once found, which yet unfound, most would have thought Impossible.' Allusion has already been made ^ to the circumstance that pending the rebuilding of his shooting-gallery, which was blown down by a hurricane in the winter of 1854, he had occupied his attention with the making of a rifled gun in segments, on a plan resembling that on which the earliest cannon were built up ' Paradise Lost, b. iv. v. 496. ^ See ante, Part I. chap. iii. p. 36. 120 MR. WHITWORTK [Part 11. with bars secured by hoops of iron. Besides what was gained in portability by this mode of construction he hoped to attain superior facilities for restoration and repair ; since the gun could be taken to pieces, and the dimensions of each part being accurately determined by gauge, any individual piece could be replaced in case of injury ; nor would the whole be any longer liable to be rendered useless by the wearing out of the touch-hole. This idea he never fully matured, his attention being absorbed by the pressing necessity of improving the Enfield musket, to which he applied the formula of polygonal rifling, originally intended to be embodied in the segment gun. Between the years 1854 and 1857, he was repeatedly solicited by the Commander-in-Chief and the Mastef- Greneral of the Ordnance to extend his attention to artillery; and brass blocks were supplied to him from the Eoyal factory, 6, 9, and 12-pounders, which, at the request of the Government, he rifled polygonally. These guns having been tried in succession by the military authorities at Shoeburyness, were each and all reported on favourably ; and when Lord Hardinge, accompanied by General Hay, the chief of the School of Musketry at Hythe, visited Manchester in the spring of 1856, to be present at Mr. Whitworth's trials with the new rifled musket, he was so struck by its extraordinary performance that he expressed his wish that Mr. Whit- worth should proceed to apply to heavy ordnance the same system of rifling which had proved so singularly successful in small arms. Cha2>.III.] BRASS GUNS. 121 Blocks for three brass 24-pounder howitzers, cast solid in the Royal factory at Woolwich, were accord- ingly sent down to Manchester to be bored and hexa- gonally rifled. Of these one was sent for trial to Shoe- buryness, where its performance was at that time regarded as something remarkable. With a charge of 2^ lbs. of powder, and at an elevation, of 141°, it sent an elongated projectile a distance of 3,240 yards. Another was iired on April 14, 1857, in the grounds attached to Mr. Whitworth's residence near Manchester ; and a few weeks after the same gun, in order to test its range, was again tried in presence of military ofScers deputed by the War Office, on the sands to the north of Mersey, a few miles from Liverpool. Up to that time, according to Sir Howard Douglas, the ordi- nary range of a 24-pounder with a charge of 8 lbs. of powder fired at an elevation of 8°, was 2,200 yards;-— Mr. Whitworth's rifled gun, with a charge of only 2^ lbs. of powder, fired at an elevation of 8^°, sent a shot of 24 lbs. to a distance of 3,500 yards, being nearly two miles. This range so far exceeded anticipation that sufficient caution had not been exer- cised in selecting a locality free from obstruction ; and the shot, after striking the sand, ricochetted to the right of the line of fire, and entering a marine villa, north of the village of Waterloo, it rolled upon the carpet, fortunately doing no greater damage than demolishing the window and astonishing a lady who was seated near the drawing-room fire. In November 1857, the third 24-lb. howitzer, which '22 wmma under water. [Partii. had been sent to Portsmouth for practice on hoard the training ship the ' Excellent,' fired shot of a peculiar form, which will presently be described,' which success- fully displayed the singular property of maintaining its direct course under water, and penetrating eight inches of oak, three feet below the surface ; an exploit pre- viously held to be impossible.^ In the course of two years Mr. Whitworth, at the request of the Grovernment, rifled in all seven brass guns of different calibres ; the blocks in every instance being provided for him from the Eoyal founderies. In each of these instances the system applied was the same in 1856 and 1857 as that used by his firm at the present day ; the rifling and its pitch were almost alike, and the projectile was the same, with the exception that the rear has since been tapered in order to increase the range and steadiness of flight ; whereas at first it was carried parallel throughout.* The gun was a muzzle- loader ; and its excellence was the result of the same combination of conditions which had already imparted surpassing excellence to the Whitworth rifle. Hitherto he had acted in friendly concert with successive Secretaries of State, and in cordial co- operation with the War Department, but in the year 1858 a conjuncture arrived, the consequences of which were calculated to change that confidential relation. The period is still so recent as to render it super- ' See post, Part III. chap. iii. p. 251. ' Sir HowAKD Douglas, Naval Gunnery, p. 423. ' Mr. Whitwoeth's Evidence, Report of the Select Committee of the House of Comm^ms on Ordnance, 1S63 : 2,509, 2,577. Chap.III.-] DEFENCE OF THE COTTSTRY. 123 fluous to recall the remembrance of that apprehension of foreign invasion, which disquieted this country in the years 1858 and 1859, and even down to a later time. France was believed to be contemplating a descent upon our shores ; encouraged by the knowledge, which it was scarcely possible to withhold, of our utter unpreparedness for any sudden attack. The Duke of Wellington, some years before, in a letter which he addressed to the Inspector-Greneral of Fortifications, Sir John F. Burgoyne, had pointed out in detail the defects of our position, and the danger to which they exposed us. That letter, notwithstanding the con- fidential nature of its contents, had by some means obtained publicity, and it naturally served to increase the sensitiveness of the public mind. Shortly after the close of the Eussian war there was evidence of unusual activity in the French arsenals and dockyards ; where not only iron-clad ships were in pro- cess of construction, but vessels of suspicious build were being prepared, calculated for the landing of cavalry and troops. Startling reports were in circulation respecting the improvements then made, not only in the rifle for the line, but in rifled cannon both for field and sea service. The tone of the French press was exasperated and sullen; and the 'Colonels' in the French army de- spatched angry and excited addresses to the Emperor, clamouring to be led to the sack of London. In spite of the warnings of the Duke of Wellington, the measures adopted for national defence against such a calamity had made but tardy progress. The great 124 LOBB HABDINGE. [PartlL naval arsenals were imperfectly protected, and the numerous commercial ports and harbours around the coast were utterly destitute of defence. Even if for- tifications had been constructed, there were not forces to garrison them, nor a movable army sufficiently strong to encounter an invading enemy. In this emergency iinusual earnestness was displayed in embodying militia, in training local artillery, and in raising and organising volunteers in every district of Great Britain. The measures adopted by the War Department for the production of the Enfield rifle, had placed at the disposal of the Grovernment a rifled small arm of highly-improved construction ; but up to that time the question of rifled ordnance, and the means of obtaining an adequate supply of artillery of ascertained excellence, both for the army and tbe navy, although eagerly discussed, had not as yet arrived at any practical solution. Lord Hardinge, to whom the country was so much indebted for origin- ating and sustaining the movement for improvement of rifled arms, had retired from the army and died ; and althougb the spirit which he had infused into the military departments had not declined, operations had been im- peded by the change of ministers, and the new organ- isation of departments, by which the War Office was separated from the professional administration of the army. Meantime the various models of rifled cannon, alluded to in a previous chapter,' had been submitted by their inventors between 1855 and 1858. The Arm- strong gun had been brought before the Duke of New- ' See ante, Pait II. chap. i. p. 83. I. ZZ7.] COLONEL LEFEOY. 125 castle in 1854, and its performance drew from Lord Panmure a highly laudatory notice in 1858. Mr. Whitworth's rifled cannon had also been tried, and re- ported on favourably, on several occasions in 1856 and 1857 ; but still no final decision had been come to in relation to any of those offered. The subject had become one of serious interest; and public anxiety was aroused by events occurring in rapid succession. The Crimean war was just ended, but the most formidable revolt on record was still desolating India, whilst England herself was being menaced along the line of her own shores. The question of ordnance engaged the early attention of the Earl of Derby and his Cabinet; and in August 1858, General Peel, Secretary of State for the War Department, ' finding that the subject was not making head,'' and that other countries were taking the lead of Great Britain, directed a report to be forthwith prepared of the results obtained up to that date, in the trials that had been made of the several cannon tendered for adoption into the service. A summary was accordingly drawn up by Colonel Lefroy, who then occupied a confidential position as scientific adviser to the Secretary of State on matters con- nected with artillery. In this document Colonel Lefroy represented that the prospect, as regarded large guns for fortifications or ships of war, was not so encou- raging as that for field guns, which might eventually be ' Evidence of Col. Lefeot before the Ordnance Committee of the House of Commons, 1862; 364, p. 16. 126 COMMITTEE ON RIFLED GUNS. [FartH. obtained with less difficulty. The Armstrong, he said, though one of the most effective hitherto brought for- ward as a light gun, was probably incapable of being made of large calibre, from its expensive character, as well as from the nature of the projectile. Whitworth's 32 and 68-pounders afforded great facility of loading, with promise of great accuracy; and the field-guns on his principle had succeeded remarkably. Garrison guns, both on Lancaster's, Blakeley's, Cavalli's and Baron Wahrendorf's systems, were each in some particulars objectionable. Colonel Lefroy was, however, on the whole, of the opinion that ' almost every element was wanting on which to base a decision as to the adoption of any one system,' ' and he recommended the imme- diate appointment of a Committee on Rifled Guns,^ with instructions to examine, with the least possible delay, all the heavy riiled gims extant, and to render a detailed account of their respective performances and capabilities for garrison and naval service. A few days after the receipt of this Eeport, General Peel acted upon the suggestion of Colonel Lefroy, and in August, 1858, nominated a special committee, to ascertain the best form of rifled gun offered up to that time, not for garrison service only, but for field service as well. ' See Col. Lefeot's Seport. Appendix to the Evidence taken by the Committee of tU House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 147. '^ August 30, 1858. The members -were Colonel Mitchell, E.A. ^President, Sir "William T. Wiseman, E.K, Colonel "W. J. Smytke, E.A, Major Wemys, E.M.A., Colonel D'Agoilar, who resigned, and was succeeded by Captain E. J. Hat, E.A., and Captain Andeew Noble, E.A., Secretary. Chap. ///.] THE EEPOST. 127 Having been directed to proceed ' as speedily as pos- sible,' the committee furnished their report within less than three months.^ In it they stated that, of the seven guns offered for their consideration, they found tha,t five presented so little superiority over the old smooth-bore, that they could not recommend them for further experiment. The attention of the committee was con- sequently concentrated on those of Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth; and it appears that the experi- ments with the latter, were not of so extended a cha- racter as those with the former ; probably, because up to that time Mr. Whitworth had only acted under the orders of the Grovernment in rifling blocks supplied from the Eoyal founderies ; whilst Mr. Armstrong, in addition to rifling, submitted likewise a system of his own invention for constructing a gun with a form of projectile, and an arrangement for loading, all peculiar to himself.^ After a very few trials with the Whitworth gun, at which Mr. Whitworth states that he had had no oppor- tunity given to him to be present ; ' the Select Com- mittee reported that they foimd the projectiles had a . large and rapidly increasing deflection to the right, which obstructed accuracy of aim ; and that the shot and shell used with the gun gave different ranges and different degrees of accuracy; that of the shot being greater ' Dated Nov. 16, 1858. It is appended to the Beport of the Select Committee of the Souse of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 166. * Beport of the Souse of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, p. 4. ' Evidence, Md. 2,416-7. 128 THE ABM8TE0NG SYSTEM. [Part II. than that of the shell. The shot, too, were so liable to 'jam' in loading that very careful washing and drying of the gun were indispensable after every round ; and, although Mr. Whitworth had overcome this by the use of lubricating wads, which ' appeared to answer well,' further trials were necessary to determine their suffi- ciency to enable washing to be dispensed with. On the other hand the committee reported that two of Mr. Armstrong's breech-loading rifled guns (an 18- pounder and a 12-pounder) exhibited powers of range and precision quite extraordinary, whilst his pro- jectile was capable of being used either as shot, or Shrapnell shell, in which latter capacity the destruc- tive effect appeared ' to exceed that of any shell in the service.' Mr. Armstrong also laid before them a percus- sion arrangement for fuses, of great importance. Both in range and penetration the committee represented the practice of the 18 -pounder Armstrong gun as ' probably the greatest on record,' although it had since been ex- ceeded by his 32-pounder, which attained the astonish- ing range of 9,175 yards.' In the case of the Armstrong ' This has since been surpassed by the guns of Mr. Whitwokth, whose small 3-pounder gave a range of 9,600 yards and upwards ; and • his 12-pounder one exceeding 10,300 yards, being very little short of six miles ! Lord Herbeet, on one occasion, undertook that Sir "William Abmstboncs should produce a gun made expressly for range, which should surpass anything exhibited by Mr. Whit-woeth; this pledge lias not yet been redeemed, but on the contrary, Sir William, at the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1860, stated that 'although the public is always captivated by the attainment of long ranges, a great delusion prevailed on the subject;' such extreme distances rendering accuracy of aim impossible, so that the fate of a battle, however perfect the weapon might be, could never be decided by firing from them. — Minutes CUp. m.] THE DECISION. 129 gun the employment of water was necessary to remove the fouling; and when first adopted, the working on this account was attended with serious inconvenience. Such, however, was their facility of loading, their ac- curacy, and apparent durability, that ' the ConiTnittee on Rifled Cannon recommended the immediate intro- duction of guns rifled on Mr. Armstrong's principle, for special service in the field.' This Eeport bears unmistakable traces of the urgency and speed with which the members conducted their enquiry, and probably to this cause is to be ascribed an omission, much to be regretted, since it has since afforded ground for complaint by Mr. Whitworth on the score of precipitancy, and of inadequate examin- ation into the merits of his, gun, as compared with the attention bestowed upon the competing one. The committee at the outset of their labours had felt the importance of visiting in person the respective factories of Mr. Armstrong at Elswick, and of Mr. Whitworth at Manchester, accompanied by a practical officer, Mr. Anderson, the Inspector of Machinery at the Eoyal Arsenal. Their object was to examine the pro- ■ofFro. Inst. Civil Eng. on Constrtwtion of Artillery, p. 124. His earlier couyictions would seem to attach a higher value to range ; and in his Re- port to the Secretary for War on Rifled Guns in 1855, he illustrated its importance by the incident which chiefly contributed to direct his atten- tion to the subject of rifled artillery. 'laUude,' he there says, 'to the memorable service rendered at Inkermann by means of the two 18-pounders, directed against the Russians, at a, distance from which the numerous but light guns of the enemy could not reply.' It may be observed that the two other great battles of the present decade, those of Magenta and Solferino, were mainly won by the range of the French Canons ray'ees ; but these were fought at distances which were doubtless within the ' extreme ' range, the attempt at which Sir William dissuades. 130 IMSEEFECT TRIAL. [Part n. cesses and modes of manufacture of each, and thus to ascertain on the spot those particulars and pecu- liarities which might enter largely into the question of comparative excellence. They arranged to go first to Elswick, which they did; and a time was also fixed to visit the works at Manchester. But that Mr. Whitworth has expressed himself aggrieved, that although anxious to avail himself of that occasion for fully explaining his process, and showing what he had already done, as well as what he was further prepared to do, he was deprived of the opportunity ; as the committee never made their promised visit to his works, but re- ported in favour of a competvng system without duly examining his. In a letter to the Times^ he complained that the committee of 18§8, ' without performing their promise to visit his works and see what was being done there ; and withoiit affording him an opportunity to be present at the comparative trials of his g\m, when he would have shown thera what it could do ; and without even giving him information as to the results obtained in his absence, should have come to a decision against it — a result which came to his knowledge by accident after- wards.' He felt that facilities had not been granted to him which were accorded to his rival ; and that he had not, as Sir William had, opportunity given for apply- ing on the spot expedients to remove temporary diffi- culties. It is possible that in making the omission com- plained of, the committee may have been influenced ' Octotor 11, 1862. CUp.in.-\ SIR W. WISEMAN. 131 by the tenour of their instructions enjoining the utmost possible speed ; or that, already satisfied of the suffi- ciency of the Armstrong gun, or even convinced of its superiority over those produced at that time by Mr. Whitworth, they may have felt it superfluous, after ex- amining the works at Elswick, to occupy more time by proceeding to those at Manchester.' But apart from ' Before the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, which resumed its sittings in 1863, Sir William Wiseman, Bart, E.N., gare an explanation of the course pursued by the Committee of 1858, of -which he was a memher. He stated that in order ' to obtain complete information upon the subject referred to them, it was quite clear to them that there were only two systems of rifling with respect to which it was advisable to go into len^hy or expensive experiments, which were Mr. Armstrong's and Mr. Whitworth's ; and that letters were directed to be written' to these gentlemen and another, Mr. Lancaster. Sixty days at least were occupied in experiments, ' almost entirely between the Whitworth and the Arm- strong guns.' ' At first,' he adds, ' we thought it would be necessary to visit both Sir William Armstrong's and Mr. Whitworth's manufac- tories, in order to ascertain their method of manufacturing guns ; but we only visited Mr. Armstrong's bicatise we had no proposal from Mr. Whitworth before us, for constritcting guns at all ' (122, 123, 127, 145). ■ There is some obscurity in this, as it is not quite intelligible that ' no proposal of a gun by Mr. Whitworth' should have been before the Committee ; when both in the report of the Committee and in this evi- dence of Sir William Wiseman, it is implied that of all those guns which they were bound to examine, they included two only in the first class ; namely, those of Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth, regarding all others as valueless in comparison vpith them. Sir William Wiseman goes on to say that the Committee did experi- ment with a, gun rified on Mr. Whitworth's principle, a 9-pounder taking a 12-pound projectile, but they ' came to the conclusion (having, in fact, no other gun before them save the brass guns rifled on the hexagonal principle) that Mr. Armstrong's gun was superior to all others, and recommended its adoption for field service. . . . Mr. Whitworth was informed by the War Office that the Committee were going there ; ' but Sir William thinks ' they had no other communication with him.' On this part of the case his information seems to be imperfect.. The ■ K 2 132 THE ARMSTRONG GUN. [Part II any question as to the amount of evidence excluded, an oversight was thus committed, such as served to impair confidence in the results of the enquiry, and to justify a doubt in the mind of Mr. Whitworth as to the soundness of the decision arrived at.' The Secretary of State for War acted promptly on the recommendation of the committee, and the light Arm- strong gun was adopted for field service in November arrangements for -risiting Mr. Whitwoeth's works were not only express, but were made at the request of the Committee. On Sep- tember 20, 1858, Lord Habdinge wrote, by direction of General Peel to say that the Committee having expressed a desire to visit Mr. Whitwoeth's works, he had to ask that the necessary facilities might be afforded them for that purpose. Mr. Whitworth, in reply, signified the pleasure with which he would do so at any time they might think fit to come to Manchester ; and Colonel MiTcnELi., in answer, said the Special Committee would acquaint Mr. Whitwoeth with the time so soon as they could arrange it. There is probably some confusion in reporting this explanation of Sir William Wiseman, which is not satisfactory as regards this portion of the Committee's proceedings ; and in a further stage of his evidence, whilst eulogising the range and accuracy of Sir William: Aemsteong's guns, he frankly avows that 'from what he has seen of Mr. Whitwobth's, he thinTcs Ms guns are quite equal; but he has had very little opportu- nity of seeing them ' (280-281), and so few of the Whitworth guns have been tried, as compared with the Armstrong, that ' he cannot say as yet that we have been able to judge.' — (539.) ' Colonel Lefeot, when questioned by the Committee of the Home of Commons on Ordnance, in 1860, as to whether the Select Committee of 1858, after ' visiting the Elswiek works, and conferring with Mr. Armstrong there regarding his guns, had gone to Mr. Whitwoeth's works and considered his inventions in the same way,' msde reply that ' Mr. Whitworth at that time made so great a secret of his mode of rifling, that the Committee would have got nothing by going to him.' This answer is unsatisfactory; opposed as it is to the fact that Mr, Whitwoeth had viritten at the time both ofBcially to the Seoretaiy of State, and unofficially to the President of the Committee, Colonel Mitchell, to communicate information, and to express his satisfaction' at the prospect of receiving them at his works. CMp. III.] WOOLWICH. 133 1858, — tut foreseeing the possibility that ' another and superior gun ' might be discovered, Greneral Peel wisely directed that the suitability of those of heavier calibre for fortifications and for the navy should be left for future consideration. Lord Derby likewise enjoined caution ; and in a letter addressed to General Peel on December 18, 1858, said that 'he should rather doubt the expediency in the present infancy of the invention, and when doubtless time and experience will both suggest improvements and produce economy in manufacture, of pressing for the immediate supply of a large number of guns, of the first type and at the highest rate. He also suggested that the first orders should be confined chiefly, if not exclusively, to that class of guns, say 32-pounders, of which we have had sufficient proof, and that we should defer any order for heavier guns till they had been rather more tested.' ' On the decision being made known, Mr. Armstrong was applied to, to state on what terms he would be ready to transfer his discoveries, and the patents which protected them, to Her Majesty's Grovernment. To this he replied by declining to negotiate on the basis of a purchase ; but expressed his readiness to assign them unconditionally, being desirous and preferring to make them a gift to Her Majesty and her successors 'without any pecuniary or other valuable consideration.' ^ A deed ' Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 112. Ibid., 1863, Beport, p. 4. ' Sir William Aemsteong, who on principle is an opponent to the system of .all patents, stated to the Committee of tlie House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863 (6,010) that 'he never attached any value to the 134 EAEL OF DEEBY. [Part U. to that effect was accordingly executed on January 15, 1859, thus completing what General Peel, in com- municating the fact to the Earl of Derby, described as 'the handsoroest offer ever made by a private indi- vidual to the G-overnment.' Mr. Armstrong was paid by grants from the Treasury, in reimbursement of all ex- penses attendant on liis experiment between the years ] 855 and 1859, when his gun was adopted.' But a difficulty arose on the very threshold; the gun, whatever its excellence, was still incomplete, and no one but its inventor was competent to con- duct the further experiments requisite to render the invention more perfect. It was, as Sir William Arm- strong subsequently said, ' a special manufacture, known at that time only to himself; and the Grovernment, after they had obtained a grant of these inventions, had no means of putting them in practice, except under his direction.' ^ Within three days, therefore, from the signature of the deed by which he so generously made over his interest in the patents, he, on January 18th, 1859, addressed a further communication to the Secre- tary of State in which he made a suggestion as to a return for his exertions, since he could not engage to give up gratuitously all future as well as past inventions patent of his gun ; and Mr. Anderson, his assistant, added on the same occasion, 'there is no secret in it.' (6,555.) The Secretary of State for War, however, declined to submit the patent itself to the Committee, as being contrary to ' public policy.' (6,078.) ' Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnaiwe, 1862. p. 17. * Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Military Organisation, 1860; 7,378, p. 513, 7,414, p. 515. Chap. Ill] DISECTOE OF OBDNANCE. 135 connected with the subject. His proposal was that he should give his future services, in the capacity of a public oflScer, at an adequate salary, and with the title of Director of Rifled Ordnance. ' With regard to the past,' he continued, ■• considering that I have waived, for the public benefit, rights which I might have turned to great pecuniary advantage,' I conceive I am entitled to some public acknowledgement. I feel that I cannot claim the merit of a gift, and at the same time expect a pecuniary equivalent, for the value of what I have re- linquished ; but I think, that, without involving any inconsistency of this kind, some requital might be made for the mere time I have expended upon the subject for the last three years ; and I should, there- fore, propose that the salary to be affixed to the new office should date back from the commencement of that period. With regard to the amount of that salary — I may fairly estimate the entire value of my time, in a professional point of view, at 6,000Z. per annum ; and I should consider that fully half that time would be absorbed in performing the duties of the supposed office. I would, therefore, propose 3,000L a year, a proper amount to cover services and future inventions.' ^ This proposal of 3,000?. per annum, he modified by reducing it to 2,000Z. a year, with the under- ' From the evidence giTen by General Peel before the Select Gom- mittee on Ordnance in 1862, it seems doubtful whether such a patent had been taken out by Sir William Aemsteong as would have secured to him the exclusive right of manufacturing guns on the plan proposed by him. — Evidence, p. 214. ^ Appendix to the Evidence of the Select Committee of the Home of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 256. 136 MB. ANDERSON. [Part II. standing that retrospectively it was to date back- wards so as to include arrears for three years, past, and prospectively that it was to endure for seven years to come. In addition to his official duties, he was to remain at liberty to carry on his private business at Elswick as heretofore, or any other in which he might think proper to engage.* With these terms the Secretary for War complied, convinced, he said, that to take his patents, without securing his services in the making of the gun, would be useless ; ^ and Mr. Armstrong was accordingly appointed Engineer to the War Depart- ment, on February 23, 1859, with an income of 2,000Z. per annum, and travelling expenses not exceeding 800?. a year ; — his salary to be calculated retrospectively from 1856, as some compensation for the labour and outlay he had incurred. As his functions were to be consultative and directory, he was at the same time provided with an Assistant, Mr. Anderson, to take charge of the practical department at Woolwich. The functions of Mr. Arm- strong (who on his appointment, received the honour of Knighthood and the Companionship of the Bath,) were defined in an ofiicial minute, by which he under- took to give his best attention to maturing and per- fecting his gun, and to conduct all eocperiments and investigations for developing his system, and for the improvement of rifled ordnance generally: — and all ' Appendix to the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Military Organisation, p. 662.— Evidence, 7,414, p. 615. * Committee on Ordnance, 1862, p, 112. CUp. m.] CAPTAIN NOBLE. 137 patents taken out by him for these purposes were to be the property of the crown. He was to furnish de- signs and drawings for guns, to visit the establishments for making those designed by himself, and to direct the processes ; but without the responsibilities or duties of a resident superintendent.' At a later period Sir William Armstrong received the further appointment of 'Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factory ' at Woolwich. Simultaneously with the transfer of his interest in his patents, a contract of an important character was entered into for the manufacture of his guns, by a pri- vate company, upon highly advantageous terms. This contract was made on the same day (January 15, 1859) on which Sir William Armstrong signed the deed of assignment to the crown ; and the parties to it were the Secretary of State for War, Sir William Armstrong, and Sir William's partners, who formed what has since been known as the Elswick Ordnance Comvpany,^ in which they were joined at a later period by Captain Andrew Noble, of the Eoyal Artillery, a gentleman whose services as Secretary to more than one of the Select Committees on Ordnance had rendered him ' Mr. Andeeson, in 1860, stated in reply to a question addressed to him by the Committee of the House of Convmons on Military Organisa- tion, as to tbe relatiTe positions of Sir William Abmsteono and him- self, that he ' looked upon Sir William as his superior ; at the same time, he does not interfere with the manufacture at all — he confines himself altogether to the gun and to the development of the gun.' — 7,564, &«., p. 415. ^ Eeport of the Select Committee on Military Organisation, 1860J pp. xvii, xviii. 138 ELSWICK \_PaHII. thoroughly acquainted with the properties of the Arm- strong gun. It is probahle that in coming to this arrangement with the Elswick Company, the Grovernment con- templated the possibility of the Koyal factory at Woolwich being unable in sufficient time to meet the demand which was then so urgent for artillery; — but the reason ostensibly assigned for creating this special establishment was that the Armstrong gun was of so peculiar a construction, and so much depended on the mode of putting it together, that it was represented to be unwise to get them in the open market, or to entrust the manufacture to ordinary contractors,' as had been the practice of the Government at former times in getting cast-iron guns from the foundries at Gospel Oak and Low Moor. This alleged peculiarity in the Armstrong gun was in itself a grave objection to an article which frequently required to be furnished in large quantities, and occasionally at very short notice. To overcome it the arrangement alluded to was made with the individuals named, whereby the exclusive right of supplying rifled ordnance beyond those made at Woolwich was given to the Elswick Company, with a guarantee for full and constant employment. To this Company Sir William Armstrong furnished capital at a fixed interest, reserving to himself the right to join it in the event of his retirement from ' Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on MUiiary Organisation, p. xvii. Chap.III.1 GENERAL PEEL. 139 the public service.^ And as the manufacture was of so novel a character as to render it impossible before- hand to calculate the probable cost with precision, it was understood that the question of fair prices for any- work done for the Government was to be a subject "for future arrangement. Another contingency was also provided for; — regard- ing the extent of employment to be given by these contracts, as liable to fluctuation and its continuance uncertain ; it was stipulated that in the event of the Grovernment curtailing or withdrawing their orders, so as to leave the works at Elswick either wholly or par- tially unproductive, compensation, not exceeding 85,000L, was to be paid in respect of so much of the capital as might be invested with the previous sanction of the Secretary of State. To the latter condition the Earl of Derby and General Peel were induced to assent, inasmuch as the guarantee was only to be en- forced in case of actual loss ; such as might accrue in the event of a superior gun being discovered, or of Government transferring the entire manufacture to Woolwich.^ General Peel also considered that the ' Eiridence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Military Organisation, 1860. — 7,414, p. 515. ^ Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 112. The caution enjoined by Lord Dekbt is evinced in the following passage, a letter from him to General Peel, dated Knowsley, December 18, 1858. 'There can, I think, be little or no doubt of the immense superiority of Mr. Akmsteong's guns over everything yet invented, and his mode of dealing -with the Government has been very fair and reasonable. I am not, however, sure that I understand the precise effect of the guarantee for which he asks. That which we have already given is that ' he shaJl not be a loser ' by the UO SIE JAMES GEAHAM. [Partn. guarantee had reference to guns alone, and did not extend to the manufacture of projectiles.' The Elswick Company was thus erected into a close and privileged monopoly ; but it was of course inter- dicted from making guns on the Armstrong principle for any party other than the G-overnment; and the Government, on their side, consented to make advances on account of work ordered and in process of manu- facture. Whatever may appear objectionable in the details of this arrangement, must be accounted for by the fact that the extraordinary crisis at which it was entered into, was one that required an extraordinary expedient to tide it over. This, and another anomaly in relation to the system of official inspection, are summed up in the ' Eeport of the Committee of the House of Commons appointed in the Session of 1860, to enquire into the effects of the Alterations in Military Organisation, made in the year 1855.' This Eeport which was drafted by the chairman, the late Eight Hon. Sir James Grraham, stated that, ' The construction of the Armstrong guns is a very refined process. The putting together requires to expenditure of 12,000Z. on a plant whioli will enable him to turn out 100 guns a year, at an estimated cost of 40,000/. ; or, in other words, that we will give him sufficient employment to reimburse him that sum over and above a fair and reasonable profit. It is not very clear to me how this fact is to be established, or how soon the guarantee is to be exhausted ; but I think it should be more explicitly settled when you come to make your final arrangements with him, which, I quite agree with you, should be fully set forth in writing.' ' Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, pp. 30, 112, 113. Chap. Ill] COMMITTEE. 141 be carefully done. Mr. Anderson, Sir William's assist- ant at Woolwich, deposes that if these guns were made by contract, it would be necessary to have some in- spectors constantly at the place where they are made, as no inspection after they had been put together would be satisfactory. Yet these guns are made at Elswick — they come up from Elswick put together. There is no Grovernment inspector at Elswick to watch their construction, but Sir William Armstrong says that the guns are manufactured there under his own inspection, and that he goes down continually. But at Woolwich also there are 3,000 men at work under his superintendence, and he admits that at Elswick he inspects guns made by his own partners in a neighbouring concern.' ^ Sir William Armstrong is well worthy of con- fidence ; and has acted generously towards the public by the free surrender of his patent rights ; but he is placed by these arrangements in a false position. He cannot tvatch two great concerns distant from each other Tnore than 300 miles. He ought not to be in- spector of the work of his own partners, although the guns are proved by an artillery officer on their arrival at Woolwich. This large and exclusive manufacture is proceeding on the assumption that they are proved to be the best. But Mr. Anderson admits there would be a difficulty if Mr. Whitworth's guns ivere proved to be better.^ ' ' Beport, &c., p. xvii. See also the evidence of Mr. Andkbson, 7,425, 7,442, 6,067-8, 6,072-3, 7,445-6-7. 142 CAFTAM HEWLETT, E.N. [Part H. The Elswick Company commenced the manufacture of guns for the Grovernment in January, 1859. The orders were then confined to the field-pieces previously taken into the service ; hut in the following autumn gims of larger calibre, the consideration of which had been very properly deferred by General Peel (who was no longer in office), were accepted for the naval service, their adoption having taken place under the circum- stances thus succinctly stated in the Report of the Com- mittee of the House of Commons reappointed in 1863 to enquire into the expenditure on rifled ordnance. ' In the winter of 1858-9, the Board of Admiralty, acting upon the advice of Captain Hewlett, E.N., of H.M.S. Excellent, gunnery ship at Portsmouth, decided upon the introduction of the Armstrong guns into the navy for boat service ; and in the summer of 1 859, the same officer having urged the importance of introducing into the navy larger calibres of Armstrong guns, the Board of Admiralty requested the Secretary of State for War, in the strongest manner, to supply them with as little delay as possible with a large number of 40- pounder and 70-pounder Armstrong guns.' 'On September 24, 1859, a committee, of which Sir William Armstrong was a member, approved of the pattern of the Armstrong 40-pounder for naval service. The Armstrong system was first extended to the 110 calibre on October 14, 1859. The political necessities of the day appear to have been so urgent as not to allow time for maturing the design previous to its manufac- ' Beport, 1862, Appendix, p. 246, 247. Ibid. 1863, p. v. CU$. IIL] NEW SYSTEM. m ture. In consequence of the excessive pressure which existed at that time for the supply of guns of that calibre, the first 1 00 of these were constructed before any experiinents upon thein had been concluded^ ' At the same time, careful and extensive experiments were carried on, to test whether any safe system of strengthening cast-iron guns could be found, or whether any better, speedier, or cheaper system of constructing rifled guns existed than that proposed by Sir W. Arm- strong.^ None such having been found within the period for enquiry, the Armstrong system was com- pletely adopted by the Grovernment.' ' See the narrative of Sir Wiiliam Aemsteong. Evidence ^-c. 3,163. p. 136. 2 Ihid. Evidence 1863, 5,230, 5,233-4. Evidence 1864, 177, et seq. 2,763, 2,765. Ordnance Report iipp. (1862) p. 207. Eeport of Ord- nance Select Committee on Cast Iron Ordnance, Farliamentary Fajper, 1863. 144 CHAPTEE IV. EFFECT OF SIR WILLIAM AEMSTKONG's OFFICIAL EELATIOU TO THE WAK DEPAKTMENT. THE recent retirement of Sir William Armstrong' from his official employments — his tenure of which had been discussed by the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1860, to enquire into the effects of certain changes in Military Organisation — has relieved the question of his original appointment from much of that delicacy and reserve with which we must always speak of a man of his high character and distinguished abilities, in relation to whatever position he may have been called to fill in the public service. But irrespective of Sir William Armstrong's eminent talents and quali- fications ; entirely apart from the merits of his gun and without impugning in the remotest degree the views and intentions of the Grovernment by whom he was elevated to that high rank in his profession ; subsequent experience has demonstrated that, consistently with the public interests, and with the advancement of the great and paramount object which was the impelling motive of his original appointment— namely, the improve- ' In February, 1863. Chap. IV.] LORD HERBERT. 145 ment, not of his own gun alone, but of rifled ordnance in general, that appointTnent was one which, ought never to have taken place. The French and other governments equally earnest in the same pursuit as ourselves, have manifested more caution, and whilst encouraging all to exertion for the improvement of rifled ordnance, have prudently forborne to commit themselves to any peculiar system or to any individual inventor. The circumstances under which Sir William Arm- strong's field-gun was adopted in 1858 ; the complaints and protracted discussions to which it gave rise, end- ing in the recent appointment of another committee to re-consider the decision of the first — are all prac- tical illustrations of the wisdom of the Duke of Wellington; in declining to embarrass the Govern- ment by identifying it with UTifinished experiments, or by the premature admission into the service of any incomplete arm.' The excitement of public feeling at the time, and the pressure of the many considerations before enume- rated, serve to explain this departure from a wisely- established rule. Lord Herbert, who succeeded as Secretary of War on the retirement of General Peel in 1859, adopted and justified the act of his predecessor by declaring his own belief ' that, when the Armstrong gun was first adopted, it had no competitor; and that, if we had waited till the great question should have been decided, of what is the best possible gun to be made, it would not be ' See ante, Part I. eh. i. p. 12. L 146 THE GVN. [Part II. in this year, nor yet in the next, that we should commence to make that which all other nations had already got, and what we should then be without." The evidence of General Peel corroborates Lord Herbert's view of the exaggerated accounts of the Armstrong gun, by which persons were carried away in 1858 ; — one general officer told him ' There was nothing half so wonderful in the Arabian Nights;' and the Duke of Cambridge, after witnessing its performance, said ' It could do everytkmg hut speak ! ' ^ Long after General Peel's retirement from office, his successors retained an undiminished confidence in the field-gun which he adopted, and in the House of Commons in 1860, the Secretary for War re- newed the assurance, that ' it had not been surpassed, if it had been equalled ;' and that from Sir W. Arm- strong, ' whatever happens, we shall have the best and most admirable weapon that can be made.' ^ The Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance Expenditure in 1863, recorded their opinion that on a review of all the circumstances and the alleged superi- ority of the Armstrong gun to all others ' known at that time, its adoption by the Secretary of State for War, for special service in the field, was fully justified.' * Amongst other circumstances that rendered decision urgent, was the mutiny then convulsing India ; and for the suppression of which the Indian Government, with- ' Evidence of the Committee of the House of Commons on Military Organisation, 1860. 7,254, p. 505. ^ Committee on Ordnance, 2,308, p. 111. ' Mr. a Hebbeet, House of Commons, Feb. 18, 1860. * Beport S;c., p. 4. Chap.ir.l DUS.E OF CAMBRIDGE. 147 out waiting for the report of the committee, anticipated the result, by applying to the War Office for a battery of Armstrong guns. Constrained by this combination of in- fluences, Greneral Peel gave his sanction to the recom- mendation ; but it must also be remembered that the only gun, for the adoption of which he is responsible, is the light field-piece ; which is still in esteem in the service, except amongst those who object on principle to breech-loading.' The gun, however, was admitted to be imperfect in some respects, nor has Sir William Armstrong, either at that time, or since, ever advanced for it any claim to mechanical perfection. On the contrary, in the con- dition in which it was presented when it was examined by the committee, in 1858, it was avowedly only in progress towards efficiency. The first questionable step, therefore, involved the necessity of the second; inasmuch as the incomplete gun required the con- ' See Seport of the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, p. vi. ; evidence of the Dake of Cambeidge, 1,250, and of Colonel Bingham, 374, 524. The Earl of Deeby, in a letter to General Peel, already quoted (p. 139 note) whilst signifying his approval of the Arm- strong gun, dwelt upon the inexpediency 'in the present comparative infancy of the invention, and when, doubtless, time and experience will both suggest improvements, and produce economy in manufacture, of pressing for the immediate supply of any very large number of guns, of the first type and at the highest rate : ' above all, ' to defer any order for heavier guns till they have been rather more tested. I have written,' his lordship concludes, 'to Pakington, to say that in my opinion this invention strengthens the case against building overgrown three-deckers, and iu favour of constructing line-of-battle ships of moderate dimensions. It wiU also, if I am not mistaken,' give greatly^ increased value to steam gun-boats, with which we are fortunately well provided.' L 2 148 PATCHED GUNS. [PaHR tinued attention of its inventor to render it complete; and hence the duties of Sir William Arm'strong, as defined in his instructions, were at first confined to ' maturing and perfecting' his gun, and to ' conducting experiments for the purpose of developing his system.' ' Even on the supposition that his functions were confined to the improvement oi ^his own gun, their exercise could hardly fail to produce inconvenience to the service, in a variety of forms ; such as the cost nf fresh experiments, the loss entailed by their failure, the delays incident to alterations, the multiplication of models (many of them eventually superseded), the interruptions in training and discipline resulting from frequent changes ; and above all, the gradual under- mining of confidence in the minds of those employed both in the land and sea forces, on perceiving that the arms with which they were provided, instead of being incontestably the best that science and skill could produce, were year after year undergoing alterations, suggestive of doubts as to their excellence and efficiency at any time,^ " Appendix to the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 177. 2 In the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, in 1863, Mr. Andbeson, the assistant of Sir William Aemsteono, at the Eoyal Factory at Wool-wich, in reference to Colonel Bingham's statement, that half the field-guns in the service are patched up, says : ' To bring our 1863 knowledge and experience and standard to test the guns of 1859 would, I think, not be fair. We do not think very much of those gum now; the guns of 1861 were very miuih better than the gum of 1869; the gun of 1862 is better than the gun of 1861. And with my present knowledge, I think the guns of last year are very bad in many par- ticulars.' — Report, p. 4., Evidence, 567. Chap. iV.'\ aiR WILLIAM AEMSTEONG. U9 But the duties devolving upon Sir William, so far from being limited to the care and development of his own gun, were expanded to much more important dimensions. As Engineer to the War Department, he became the consulting officer of the crown upon artil- lery in general. By the terms of his appointment, he was ' to report and advise upon all questions submitted to him by the War Department in relation to rifled ordnance ; if these were referred to a committee, he was, if required, to act under the direction of that committee ; but in all other cases his duties were to be exercised subject to the control of the Secretary of State for War,' ' He was thus constituted the confi- dential adviser of the Government upon the discoveries of other inventors, as well as of his own — a position of the utmost delicacy and difficulty, and one in which it was hardly possible for its occupant to be regarded as an indifferent witness, or to escape the suspicion of becoming an interested umpire. It would be deroga- tory to the high character of Sir William Armstrong to suppose it necessary, even for form's sake, to disclaim the remotest idea of imputing to ■ him a feeling so un- worthy, much less any act ascribable to it ; but to de- monstrate how unwise in its conception was the creation of an office which placed its occupant, however great his reputation, in a position where his conduct was so open to misconstruction ; it is only necessary to point to the fact, that other inventors abstained from submitting ' See Report of the Committee of the Sotise of Commons on Ordnance, 1862 ; Appendix, p. 177. 150 INJURY TO niVENTOES. [Part IT. their plans, through apprehension that they would fail to satisfy the Ordnance Select Committee, of which Sir William Armstrong was the constituted adviser ; or else that their drawings and explanations might be made an unfair use of. Captain Blakely, during his examination by the Committee of the House of Commons on Ord- nance in 1863, stated, that in 1860 he had been deterred by that feeling from submitting the project of a particu- lar gun, calculated as he believed to penetrate armour- plate, which he offered to make at his own cost, and submit for trial free of expense to the Government; but which he was told would only be accepted on the condition, that ' the drawing from which the gun was to be made should be approved of by the Ordnance Select Committee.' This he declined, first, because he despaired of satisfying that Committee ; secondly, be- cause he considered ' it would be quite time enough to tell them how the gun was made if they approved ' of its performance; but his principal reason for with- holding the drawings was because Sir William Arm- strong was the adviser of that Committee, and they might thus get into the hands of an inventor who was himself a competitor. ' I thought,' he adds, ' that thus some little alteration might be made in the gun, and that it might have been copied and represented to the country as an Armstrong gun." This suspicion. Captain Blakely says, was engendered in his mind by a previous one, by which he has since found that he did Sir William Armstrong. the injustice of supposing ■ E-ridence, No. 4,756, &c., 4,774, &c., 4,782, 4,785, &c., 4,789, 4,791. i. IV.] EAEL OF DERBY. 161 that an Armstrong gun, which he had seen at Wool- wich, was imitated from one which he (Captain Blakely) had in progress there at the same time. In this he was now satisfied he was wrong ; but Sir William Arm- strong's official position had the effect which he avowed of deterring him from submitting his plans.' 'I think,' says Captain Blakely, 'that no inventor should be placed in the position of Sir William Armstrong. If I had myself been placed in that position, it would have had the same effect on other inventors that it had on me.' 2 The appointment, as is shown by the terms in which it was made, took place at a moment when men of science, some of them eminent in their departments as mecha- nical engineers, were eagerly in pursuit of the best gun for national service ; investigating the principles on which perfection may be attaiaable ; and freely tendering their discoveries to the Grovernment as demonstrative of their progress. Even after the formal adoption of the Armstrong gun as the best procurable at that period ; and notwithstanding eulogies, which, however extravagant, were nevertheless the genuine outburst of surprise and admiration;^ thoughtful men in high positions did not ignore the possibility of sooner or later discovering a better weapon. The Earl of Derby, as before alluded to, intimated the probability of this to General Peel in 1858,* who participated in the ' Evidence, No. 4,867, &o., 4,879, &e. 2 B. 4,893. » See ante, p. 146. ■* Beport of the Committee of the Souse of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, p. 112. 152 . INVENTION. [PartU. feeling.! gij. James Graham, two years later, re- peated the same impression in the Report of the Committee on Military Organisation ;'^ and during the course of the enquiry, Mr. Anderson, Sir William Arm- strong's Assistant at Woolwich, had adverted to the practical difficulty arising out of Sir WilHam's appoint- ment, 'supposing Mr. Whitworth's should be found, on experiment, to be a better gun than his.' ^ This spirit of enquiry, then active in England, it was the paramount duty of the Crown to stimulate and foster; and the passage already quoted from Sir William Armstrong's instructions, serves to show that it was in the contemplation of the Government to do so. But to confer on one highly favoured in- dividual, however signal his ability, all the honours of early triumph, with all the material facilities of office, and the command of all the resources which office implies, was a discouragement to other rivals sufficient to paralyse energy and to stifle exertion. It was regarded as an intimation, that in the grand aim of producing a gun worthy of the national service, competition was closed, and silence imposed upon further discussion. And this was confirmed by the subsequent intimation that although as regards the nobler game pursuit was discouraged, the genius of the country might still be profitably bestowed upon ' such small deer ' as the discovery or means of rifling the stores of old cast-iron ordnance, to prevent their ' Report ^c, p. 112. a Bid. p. xviii. " Committee on Military Organisation, 5,959, p. 424. Chap. IF.] 6ENEBAL ST. GEORGE. 163 becoming a total loss, in consequence of the adoption of the Armstrong gun. Besides, assuming that competition was stUl to go on, the position of Sir William Armstrong gave to its occupant an undue advantage in many other respects. As Superintendent of Eifled Ordnance, he was en- titled to consult the official reports which detailed the performance of other guns ; and to be present at trials from which not only the public but the inventors themselves were excluded. It was practically unfair to pit, against private individuals, working on their own resources, and conducting costly experiments at their own risk, a competitor thus favoxired ; whose experi- ments were conducted at the Government establish- ments, and their expenses defrayed from the national treasury. As a natural consequence, it is said that some of the improvements brought forward by other inventors, have been adopted by Sir William Arm- strong in perfecting the Government gun — an appro- priation which their authors might have resisted, had they not been reluctant to throw obstacles in the way of an official, in pursuit of what was indispu- tably a national object. General Peel,' General St. George, and other high- minded officers,^ do not share in this feeling, and con- sider that Sir William Armstrong had no greater facilities than other persons for having his ordnance tested, and that he never enjoyed any influence prejudicial to the ' Committee on Ordnance, 2,323, 2,327, &c. 2 lUd. 2,742, p. 136. 154 COLONEL LEFEOY. [Part U. claims of other inventors. But without imputing a deliberate intention, or assigning a single fact in evi- dence of such a result, the very instincts of society suggest its probability. It might, in fact, be regarded as unfair to Sir William Armstrong himself, as one of the competitors in this honourable struggle, that he should be placed in a position which, instead of permitting him calmly to observe the progress of the prevailing emulation, and apply its products to the advantage of the great national establishment over which he presided, had the effect of putting him practically on the defen- sive; and exposed him to the suspicion of looking coldly on suggestions, however palpably for the public good, if they threatened to militate against the accepted superiority of his own productions. But perhaps the most prejudicial consequence of Sir William Armstrong's appointment was, that it rendered the Government a partisan in a question in which, of all others, it was its manifest interest to be purely im- partial. Having adopted the Armstrong gun as the best that was then procurable, the War Department felt constrained, in its own defence, to maintain it against all assailants, and to uphold its superiority over all possible rivals. Colonel Lefroy, when examined before the Com- rruittee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, in 1862, stated candidly his opinion of the practical effect of Sir William Armstrong's appointment, on the efforts of other engineers engaged in the same pursuit : • — ' 354. Do you conceive that Mr. Whitworth has had the same opportunity of having experiments tried, with Chap. IV.] COLONEL LEFROY. 156 regard to his gun, that Sir W. Armstrong has had with regard to his?' ' No ; I think not.' '355. Why is that?' ' Because Sir William Armstrong is the Engineer for Rifling Ordnance to the Government. The Grovern- ment has deliberately adopted his system of rifling, and ■is bound to work it out.' '356. Sir William Armstrong is an officer in the War Department?' ' Yes. Mr. Whitworth takes place as one amongst the many competitors against him, and a very eminent one ; but it is not to be supposed that he should have the advantages that Sir William Armstrong necessarily derives from his position, and his duties towards the Government,' '357-8. His being a very eminent competitor with Sir William Armstrong, Sir William Armstrong's posi- tion gives him an advantage over him ?' ' I think it does. ... Sir William Armstrong being placed in that position he has necessarily both the duty and the opportunity of developing his system, which other competitors have not.' '■ At a further stage of the same enquiry, Colonel Grardner, the chief instructor in artillery at Shoebury- ness, declined to commit himself as to the merits of the Armstrong gun compared with those of any other com- petitor with it, on the ground that ' no gun has been tried on equal terms with the Armstrong, and therefore it is ' Evidence of the Committee on Ordnance, 1862, p. 16. 156 ELSWICK. [Part II. impossible at the preseat to arrive at any opinion. . . . No gun, he adds, has gone through the amount of experi- ment and trial that the Armstrong gun has, and I would not commit myself by giving an opinion on the subject.' As opposed to Mr. Whitworth, and all other aspirants emulous of improving ordnance in general, the Govern- ment, as Colonel Lefroy says, having deliberately adopted Sir WilHam Armstrong's system of rifling, ' was bound to carry it out,'' — bound, in self-justification, to abide by its own decision, and to resist the belief that any other system was or could be superior ; and bound to cling to the Armstrong gun, incomplete as it admittedly was, rather than make way for another with better-founded claims to superiority. Another aspect in which Sir William Armstrong's official position may be viewed is the commercial one — the influence it was likely to have upon other estab- lishments embarked in the same branch of manufacture. It is true that the justification ofiiered for the endow- ment of Elswick was the impossibility of having the Armstrong gun brought to perfection under any other auspices than those of its author ; and the alleged im- prudence of entrusting its manufacture to any less trust- worthy contractors than those who produced it under his vigilant inspection. For an article likely to be in such extensive demand, it is no doubt a grave objection that it should be so complex or so delicate in its construc- tion as to require extraordinary precautions for its pro- duction, involving the special organisation of a peculiar establishment. But the correctness of this latter plea, Chap. IV.] EL8WICK. 167 it is right to state, has been questioned by Mr. Anderson, the chief of the Eoyal Grun Factories at Woolwich, who, in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance in 1862, stated that he did not consider this difficulty to exist in practice. Hence a question has been raised, and not unnaturally, whether any necessity existed for the creation of a new establish- ment at Elswick, seeing the resources which the Grovern- ment were already in possession of at Woolwich, and their easy convertibility to the manufacture of the new guns and projectiles. When, therefore, Sir William Armstrong became Superintendent at Woolwich, it has not yet been shown why, with his able assistance, the existing factory there could not have been adapted, and, if necessary, extended for the production of his ord- nance, with greater ease than Elswick was organised for the same purpose. But assuming the difficulty apprehended in making the first Armstrong guns (and in the experimental stage of 1858, it no doubt existed), that difficulty could only be temporary, and in due time skilful workmen in various parts of England would have been trained, competent to undertake the manufacture; but what private speculator would be found bold enough to tender and contract in competition with the Elswick Company; which, though ostensibly private, was in reality founded by advances of capital from public sources, and enjoyed, not only the profits of success, but also a Government guarantee against the possibility of loss ? 158 WAR DEPAETMENT. [PartU. The War Department originally contemplated the probability of competition from other quarters, for a right was reserved to the Crown, in the engagement with the Elswick Company, to divide its orders with any other firm ; but then the attempt to do so would have called into action the clause in the contract which awarded compensation for any loss so occasioned. Be- sides, what rival establishment, trading on its own resources, and responsible for its own risks, could pos- sibly enter the market in competition with an associa- tion founded by the aid of public money, partially paid in advance for its productions, and secured against all adverse contingencies by the terms of its bond with the Crown ? ' From such a dilemma the War Department has been relieved by the recent termination of the contract ^ with the Elswick Company. The full results were, of course, unforeseen when such a contract was entered into in 1859; nor can- blame be justly imputed to those in authority by whom the arrangement was made, consulting as they did for the public advantage at a crisis of unexampled embarrassment, and acting on information apparently the most reliable that the state of the question could afford at that period. The fallacy which pervaded the whole arrangement ' The agreement and explanatory documents in connection with the contract between the Government and the Elswick Company, will be found in the Appendix to the Report of the Home of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, No, 48, p. 486, &c. ^ The contract with the Elswick Company was terminated on the part of the Government in April 1863. Chap. IV.I BOYAL ABSENAL. 159 was frankly stated by General Peel, who, when examined by the Committee on Ordnance,in 1862, said — the gun having been accepted by the Government, 'now belongs to the Secretary of State, and not to Sir William Arm- strong ; nor is he to be regarded as an inventor who is at rivalry with any other person. I look upon him as appointed in order that he may invprove as far as pos- sible the gun which he has presented to the Govern- ment.' ' General Peel elsewhere admits that he con- templated the possibility of a better gun being produced by some other competitor.^ So long, therefore, as the . j^xmstrong gun was only in progress, and Sir William engaged in conducting experiments to ' improve ' it, he was not only still an 'inventor,' but in active competi- tion with others eager in the same pursuit. The influence of the same fallacy extends to Sir William's appointment as Superintendent of the manu- facture both at Elswick and the Eoyal Arsenal. Sub- sequent experience has shown that the difficulty was over-estimated of reproducing the Armstrong gun unless with Sir William's personal superintendence throughout every stage of the process. His assistant, Mr. Anderson, whose appointment was simultaneous with his own, declares that from the first he conducted all the practical operations without the intervention of Sir William.;' nor can there be a doubt that any equally able mechanical engineer would have done the same. The shape in which the matter might originally have > Evidence, &c., 2,323, p. 114. ' Ibid. 2,312, p. 112. ^ Evidence of the Committee on Ordnance, 1,333, p. 59. 160 MZLITABY ORGANISATION. [PartlL been adjusted, in 1859, is that into which it has finally resolved itself, by the discontinuance of the Elswick con- tractin 1862, and the voluntary retirement of Sir William Armstrong, in 1863. Without being constituted con- sulting Engineer for the War Department, Sir William might, with advantage to the public service, have occupied an entirely independent position, whilst completing his experiments, accepting such encouragement and assist- ance as the Government could legitimately extend to him, compatibly with the just claims of every other com- petitor. And as regards his employment as Superim- tendent of the Royal Gun-Factory, it no longer admits of a doubt that it is not desirable, when conferring a well-merited reward upon any successful inventor, how- ever eminent, to place him at the head of the state manufactiirvrLg department — a position which, as shown by the Committee on Military Organisation, in 1862, he could satisfactorily occupy only so long as no gun should have been discovered with qualities superior to his own. ' Should the Whitworth gun, or any other,' said Mr. Monsell in the House of Commons, ' prove to be superior to that of Sir William Armstrong, and be purchased by the Government, the mavAifacture of it would have to he confided to a rival inventor ! ' ' To the country the cost incurred by the Govern- ment connection with Elswick appears from the official evidence to have been very serious. The novelty of the manufacture rendered it difficult, at starting, to fix prices for the different articles ordered by the War ' Speech in the House of Commons, June 19, 1860. Chap.ir.] ME. ANDERSON. 161 Department, and it appears by the evidence taken by the Select Committee of the House of Gomm,07is on Military Organisation, in 1860, that at first, so much as 200?., afterwards reduced to 170L, was paid to Elswick for 12-pounder guns, which at Woolwich were made for 87J. 3s. 5cZ., or nearly one half.' Colonel Boxer, one of the chiefs of the Eoyal Factory at Wool- wich, stated in 1862, before the Committee of the House of Com/mons on Ordnance, that the amount paid to the Elswick Company for shot and shells alone, between 1859 and 1862 was 292,875?., all of which , could have been supplied at Woolwich without any difficulty, for 195,588?. (including in that sum 27,902?. for buildings and machinery), so that the Government would have benefitted to the extent of 97,287?., besides possessing itself of a working plant as its own for con- tinuous service.^ For guns during the same period, the amounts paid to Elswick are much larger, as may be inferred from the fact, that Mr. Anderson ^ stated to the same Com- mittee, that at Woolwich he had made in three years 575 110-pounders, at an average cost of 424?. 13s. Id.; ' Evidence, S[c. p. 516. Sir William Aemsteong, who as inspector was consulted as to tHs charge, says that 'in that case there was no alternative hut to take the charge of the compaijy ;' and he gave it as his opinion ' that it was a fair and a proper charge. He could not see what else he could have done, but that was because the cost of manufacture at that time was so uncertain that it was impossible to define what it would he.'— Q«es<. 7,434, 7,436. 2 md., p. 31. ' Rid., Appendix, p. 236. M 162 ' EL8WICK COMPANY. [Part II. whereas the Elswick Company supplied 109 of the same guns at lOOl. each, and 50 at 650?.^ ■ As the guarantee given by General Peel, in 1859, was only to take effect in the event of actual loss ia the manufacture of guns for the Grovernment, the gain upon these transactions will no doubt modify any claim on that score by the Elswick Ordnance Company.'' ' Evidence, ^c, p. 189. The Elswick guns are here called 100- pounders, but in every respect they are the same as those descrihed as 110-pounders by Mr. Anbeeson. ' Since this chapter was written an award has been made by which the Elswick Company have received a sum equivalent to 65,000i. ss compensation for the cessation of Government employment. 163 CHAPTER V. THE CONTEST. MR. WHITWORTH has stated, so imperfect was the relation between him and the Committee who conducted the comparative trials between his gun and Sir William Armstrong's, that he never received from them any communication as to the result; and the adverse decision at which they arrived only came to his knowledge by accident some time afterwards.' This and other omissions cannot be ascribed to discourtesy, although some observations made in the course of the House of Commons' Enquiry in 1863^ would seem to imply the possibility, that the Committee being capti- vated by the circumstance that Sir William Arinstrong had ' proposed a gun of his construction, as well as a system of rifling of his own, whilst Mr. Whitworth's was only a brass service gun, bored on his system of rifling,' really entertained a doubt whether it was ' quite a fair way of expression to call it his gun at all ! '^ But > Letter to the Times, Oct. 11, 1862. ^ See Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863, 2,420 to 2,430. ' See Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1863, 2,420 to 2,430. This doubt serves to recall the thesis discussed by U 2 164 THE CONTEST. [FartU. the members of the Committee of 1858 were fully aware that Mr. Whitworth was not a professional gun- maker, and that up to that time he had been a dis- interested adviser of the Grovernment; giving the aid of his scientific attainments and mechanical experience for the improvement of an important element in the public service, — and this not only without any desire of reward, but, as stated by the Special Committee who had just investigated the expenditure incurred, at the actual 'loss of interest on money advanced by him; whilst the country had the benefit of the services of the first mechanician of the day, energetically en- deavouring, by means of an experienced staff and beautiful machinery, to solve the problem of the true principle of rifling.' ' The patents of which Mr. Whitworth possessed him- self were, of course, of high value ; and it is due to him to state that, whilst he handed over uncondition- ally to the Crown the right to use those for the rifled musket, the actual cost of his experiments with which ■were refunded from the public treasury, (but inclusive of no remuneration for his personal services,) he continued, long after the severance of his more intimate relation with the War Office, to place at the disposal of the authorities the use of his patents for further discoveries, the expenses of which were defrayed from his private theological casuists in the middle ages, whether scrupulously as -well as anatomically considered, a father could properly be said to be any rek- tioii to his own child ! • See Eeport, Appendix to the Evidence of the House of Common^ Committee on Ordnance, 1863, p. 62d. Chap. F.] INSUFFICIENT TRIALS. 165 resources ; thus enabling them to be turned to advantage in the furtherance of a great public object, as was the case in the instances of the lubricating wad, and the flat- fronted projectile for penetrating armour-plate.' Judging from such expressions as have been uttered in public by Mr. Whitworth, his feeling, on being made acquainted with the adverse decision of the Committee, was not so much that of disappointment that his own gun had not been chosen, as of regret that it had not been sufficiently tried. Captain Koble, a member of the Committee by whom the Armstrong gun was re- commended for adoption, stated to a Select Committee of the House of Commons five years after, that before coming to that decision ' Mr. Whitworth's gun was tried altogether about eight or nine times, and Sir William Armstrong's from forty-five to fifty times.' ^ Ithas already been observed, that the instructions of the Committee were to proceed ' as speedily as possible '; but even con- sistently with that injunction, so very hurried an enquiry was obviously as insufficient to determine the superiority of one gun, as it was inadequate to test the positive merits of either. The important merits of wear and tear, and endurance, demanded a more prolonged in- vestigation, irrespective of the detailed comparison of two totally different systems of loading and rifling, and of two varieties of projectile, not only distinct in their ' Beport of the British Association, 1861, p. 354. ' E-vidence, ^c, 3,080, 3,082, 3,105, &c. The Duie of Cambeidge on the same occasion gave it as His Eoyal Highness's opinion, that the Whitworth gun had not, up to that time, been as thoroughly tried as Sir W. Abmsteong's. Ibid, 1,239. 166 SIB HOWABD DOUGLAS. [Pari IF. configuration, but in the metals of which they were re- spectively formed. The unsatisfactory issue of the late enquiry was thus summed up by Sir Howard Douglas: — ' The comparative value and importance of the Arm- strong and Whitworth guns (so essentially different in construction, dimensions, faculties, and aptitude that they cannot be equally adapted to all the requirements of general service) can only be correctly estimated, fairly judged so far as they satisfy the principles of gunnery, and their real service uses proved by actual experiment and protracted trials under circumstances resembling as nearly as possible the requirements and vicissitudes of war.' ^ Still, it does not appear that this repulse, vexatious aa it undoubtedly was, would have led to an interrup- tion of the good offices which Mr. Whitworth was then gratuitously rendering to the public, had not another untoward event precipitated their sudden suspension. Experience had not yet demonstrated the unsuitability of cast iron, as a material for the construction of rifled cannon ; and towards the close of 1857, Lord Panmure, then Secretary of State for War, encouraged by the complete success of Mr. Whitworth in rifling the brass- guns which had been entrusted to him, directed a cast- iron block for a 32-pounder to be forwarded to Man- chester, to undergo the same process ; the intention being to determine the capacity of that metal for the manu- facture of rifled ordnance. This gun burst under trial ; as did another of the same metal and calibre, which in ' Naval Gunmry, Part II. cliap. v. p. 221. Chap. V.I GENERAL PEEL. 167 the following summer was likewise supplied by the Groverament. But notwithstanding these evidences of the insuflSciency of cast iron, Mr. Whitworth rifled a third gun, a 68-pounder, in June 1858 ; the more immediate object being to test the power of a projectile, newly in- vented by himself, in the confident hope of being able by its assistance to penetrate wrought-iron plates. The particulars of this important experiment, and the gra- tifying issue of the attempt, will be mentioned in another chapter ; ' but the triumph of the new pro- jectile was the destruction of the gun, which was rent into fragments by the explosion, — thus definitely settling the question of the insufficiency of cast-metal for such services. In reply to a letter from Mr. Whitworth, explaining the causes of the accident, and deprecating the further use of cast metal for rifled cannon, the Secretary of State directed him to be informed of his determination 'to discontinue further experiments with ordnance rifled on his principle.' ^ There was something to be regretted in the time, as well as in the terms, of this peremptory order. Its import was unusually grave, inasmuch as it embodied a condemnation issuing from the highest constituted authority in such matters, not merely of an individual misadventure, but of the whole system under which Mr. Whitworth's operations were carried on. It was a ' See post, Part III. chap. iii. p. 254. ° Letter from the War Office to Mr. Whitwoeth, Dec. 20, 1858. See Evidence of the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, p. 109. 168 MB. WHITWOETH {Part II. solemn repudiation, as applied to ordnance, of the very ' principle ' which but a few months before had been crowned with such signal success in the case of rifled small arms. But in addition to this, the sudden resolution to get rid altogether of Mr. Whitworth and. his experi- ments followed fast upon the Report of the Ordnance Committee in favour of the Armstrong gun ; and its announcement was concurrent with the negociation for securing the services of Sir William Armstrong, as Director of Rifled Ordnance, and Engineer to the War Department. Thus the man who, but a short time before had been confided in by the Commander-in-chief of the British army as the 'most celebrated mechanician of his country,' ' found himself suddenly assailed on the tenderest point, his professional fair fame; and for the vindication of this, he on the instant from an amateur artillerist became a professional gun-maker. ' He had not had previously,' as he stated to the House of Commons' Committee of 1863, 'the most distant idea of becoming a manufacturer of rifled arms.^ I took it up,' he said, ' originally, solely because I was re- quested by the Grovernment, but when I received this letter from General Peel to inform me that no more experiments were to be made with guns on my prin- ciple, I determined at once to become a manufacturer ' See ante, Part I. chap. ii. p. 22. ^ ' Mr. "Whit-wokth's object was to ascertain what is the most perfect form of a rifle that can be produced, and then to leave it to others to make and use it.' — Edinburgh Review, 1859, p. 624. Ohaf. F.] PEBSEVEEANCK 169 and to prove that my system was right. With respect to the rifle, it has ah'eady been shown that it was so ; and I think it will soon be admitted, that I was right with regard to ordnance also.' ^ 'It does not follow,' says a high ethical authority, ' that a man is the discoverer of any art merely because he is the iirst to say the thing, but he who says it so long, and so loud, and so clearly, as to compel mankind to hear him. It is the man who is so deeply impressed with the importance of his discovery that he will take no denial ; but at the risk of fortune and fame, pushes through all opposition, determined that what he feels he has discovered, shall not perish for want of a fair trial.' ^ Such was the instinct which impelled Mr. Whitworth to become the producer as well as the inventor of his own gun; and under the influence of that feeling, he at once founded a rifled ordnance factory at Manchester. In the new career into which he found himself thus unexpectedly forced, his object was, not as in the instance of Sir William Armstrong's appointment to Woolwich, ' the maturing and perfecting of his system of rifled ordnance,' his system of rifling being already as perfect as it was in his power to render it ; but to obtain for it, by an appeal to public opinion, a dispassionate trial, an ample investigation, and a deliberate judgment. In pursuit of this, the grand obstacles which he had ' Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ord- nance, 1863, 1,438. 2 The Eev. Stdnuy Smith. — Edinburgh Review, 1826. 170 ESPEIT DE COBFS. [Part IL to encounter were the dominion of routine, and the influence of esprit de corps on the service, which some- times acts like a superstition of caste in resisting all improvements from without. Monasticism, with its unsympathising self-reliance, is not confined to religious houses and ecclesiastics. Its influence is susceptible of equal development in fraternities of laymen. It is the natural growth of sectional training and professional segregation. It is as discernible in the college as in the convent ; and the retirement of the Inns of Court or the counting-house is not less likely than the seclusion of the cloister, to engender contracted habits of thought and confirm isolated motives of action. The same shrinking from identification with the world without, which animates the asceticism of a monastery, may be traced to a kindred source in the discipline that in- spires the selfTesteem and exclusiveness of an orderly room and a barrack. Lord Elcho stated in the House of Commons, in 1861, that from the first, when Mr. Whitworth was called in by Lord Hardinge to advise as to 'the best principles on which rifles should be made, there arose a feeling of prejudice against him be- cause he was an outsider.^ ' And yet, by a strange anomaly, an 'outsider,' if once formally admitted into the service of the War Department, appears to be received with all the warmth, and defended with all the energy, which characterise the military fraternity. The reason is, that the stranger has entered under the auspices of authority; and authority is that mysterious principle ' Lord Eloho's Speech in the House of Commons, June 25, 18G1. Cla:p. V:\ SELECT COMMITTEE. 171 which commands, and properly commands, the un- faltering worship of an army, in the organisation of which it is as essential as it is puissant. Amongst themselves, and in relation to affairs ex- clusively military, this system has its advantages. Men become partial to habits of action which are peculiar to their own class ; and the inculcated belief, that whatever is done by authority must be right, not only reconciles those whom it concerns to its incon- veniences, but disposes them instinctively to defend it against all uninitiated assailants. But not so as regdrds the public. This regimental discipline cannot safely be extended to them, — and in the relation of the army to civil affairs, discussions arise and interests become involved, that cannot be disposed of by the same forms and processes which may work satisfactorily under a martial code. Military trials are generally called for by sudden emergencies, and those familiar with such tribunals are prepared to be satis- fied with vigorous action and prompt conclusions. But scientific investigations cannot be properly con- ducted with the summary rapidity of a court-martial. In the Select Committee which tried the Armstrong and Whitworth guns in 1858, the members were ex- clusively naval and military officers, whilst the parties on whose interests they were to give judgment were as exclusively civilians. Hence the issue of the trial excited much discontent amongst classes unaccustomed to the military aspect of the proceedings ; and whilst no man in England thought for a moment of imputing 172 ME. WSITWOETH. [Part II pavtiality to the judges, confidence in their judgment ■was impaired by the insufiBciency of their experiments. The redress of this error was the object now aimed at by Mr. Whitworth; but in its pursuit he had to encounter prolonged discouragement, from the re- luctance of those in office to reopen a great question which had been so recently closed ; from the impulse of the majority of military ofBcers to uphold the acts of the Ordnance Committee, and from the difficulty of obtaining reports and other official documents for the ultimate establishment of right. Under such sinister auspices, and retarded by difficulties incident to the novelty of the situation, the effort was at first tedious and dispiriting. The main cause of this was the fact that Mr. Whitworth at the moment had no guns of his own making ; and was obliged to defer a public appeal till he should first provide these. In the raean time. Sir William Armstrong, with all the eclat of brilliant success, and sustained by the ele- vation of office and the almost boundless resources of his new position, was enabled to display to the utmost advantage the surprising power of the exquisite piece of mechanism he had produced. The army, with a very few exceptions, were delighted with the acquisition of their new field-pieces ; although the complexity of the parts involved the necessity of an entirely new driU for the artillery, an inconvenience which would not have been incident to the simpler form of the Whitworth gun.' And the nation in general, always prone, as ' Eeport of the Souse of Commons' Select Committee on Ordmme, 1863, p. T. Chap, v.] THE PEES8. 173 the Times pointed out at the moment, to think that each fresh invention in mechanics is to be the last of its kind, was so charmed with the beautiful cannon, so far transcending the old ordnance, as to believe it the ne plus ultra of artillery, and to look on further improvement as impossible.' But whilst the multitude were thus captivated by the attractive mechanism and elaborate workmanship of the Armstrong gun, by the novelty of loading at the breech instead of the muzzle, by the combination of two metals in the strangely shaped projectile, by the bold idea of spontaneous rifling, and the ingenious device (since abandoned in field-pieces) for counteracting recoil ; as well as by its other peculiarities, — the reflecting section of the profession and the service had their attention still fixed on the familiar bronze cannon, bored and rifled on the Whitworth plan, which recommended itself to confidence by its strength, its simplicity, its surprising powers, and sturdy endurance. Apprehension began to be entertained whether, in an unguarded moment, the Government, like the princess in the story of Aladdin, had not listened to the cry of the magician, and hurriedly exchanged the old lamp for a prettier new one. The press became gradually divided in the contro- versy, but" the periodical organs of scientific bodies were unanimous in apprehending precipitancy and enjoining caution. The most distinguished mechanicians were prudently silent, and disposed to suspend the expression of opinion in a case in which few were sufiiciently ' The Times, Feb. 17, 1860. iri CONSTBUCTION OF AETILLEEY. {Part 11 conversant with the facts; since science in its exact forms can hardly be said to have been applied to the construction of rifled fire-arms before the experiments of Mr. "Whitworth. The body of civil engineers threw open the theatre of their Institute, and invited unem- barrassed discussion upon the all-engrossing topic of the Construction of Artillery ' and members of the British Association for the Promotion of Science availed themselves of its meetings, to advance opinions sugges- tive of the necessity of further experience before coming to a conclusion on data stiU incomplete. Thus the decision of the Ordnance Committee, which, under other conditions, ought to have inspired universal confidence, and put an end to competition, served only as a signal for the commencement of a far more vigor- ous contest, amidst the din of which Mr. Whitworth proceeded to arrange his machinery for the production of a piece of ordnance, the future performance of which was to vindicate its own title to the qualities he claimed for it. In the principle of rifling which he had elaborated he had no improvements to introduce, in regard either to range or precision ; but fully aware of the prodigious force which he was enabled to wield, his only difficulty was to provide hidiself with a metal of such strength and endurance, as to curb and control the stupendous power of gunpowder. It was the old- ' The report of the discussion which arose in consequence has been recorded in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers for 1859-60, as well as reprinted in a separate volume by their authority. aiap. v.] AECHIMEDES. 175 world story of the Syracusan philosopher conscious of the irresistible might of his lever ; but in search of a fulcrum from which to move the Universe.' Whilst the application of rifling to artillery had disclosed the prospect of hereafter employing the enormous power of gunpowder to an extent previously unforeseen, the early progress made had already served to reveal the fact that no one of the metals heretofore used for the making of cannon of an ordinary size was any longer equal to resist its tremendous and immea- surable rending force, when exerted on a grand scale and in guns of great calibre.'* It must likewise be borne in ' The exdamation of Aechimedes : Sis vov ara Kot rhv Kdir/nQv Kwnffm ! ' Mr. LoNGBiDGE, in a paper read before the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1860, quoted the authority of Eobins, who calculated the ultimate strength of gunpowder to he 7 tons on the square inch, equal to the pressure of a thousand atmospheres ; and of Hutton, who be- Meved it to be 17 tons, or 2,400 atmospheres. Colonel Boxeb, in his Treatise on Artillery, makes it 14-4 tons per square inch. Mr. Long- EIDGE himself estimated it at 20 tons ; but other authorities, he adds, assumed that this might be doubled. A well-informed writer in the London Observer, Nov. 15, 1863, says the strength of gunpowder in a state of explosion is so vast, and it is from its very nature so difficult to test, that it need not be a cause of surprise that those who have devoted the greatest amount of time and attention to the subject are stiE at a loss to estimate it with anything like certainty. The imprisoned forces which lie within the ingredients of this substance are such that, when set free, they occupy a space 317 times greater than when in the grains of powder. One cubic inch of gunpowder wiU evolve on explosion 79'4 cubic feet of nitrogen, and 238 of carbonic acid. The whole of this increase of bulk takes place instantaneously ; the gases are Kberated by a spark, with a rapidity great£r_than the speed of lightning. But this calculation of the quantity of gases set free at the moment of explosion is given only according to the space which they would occupy at the ordi- nary temperature of the atmosphere. Within the barrel of a gun the heat at the moment of explosion has been calculated at 3,000 degrees, 176 MR. LONGBIDGE. [Pari 11. mind, that gunpowder itself may not even yet have attained its highest development, and that its powers may sooner or later be increased by some new apportion- ment of its parts. For certain objects it may even be superseded by gun-cotton or some equally explosive ao-ent. so that a metal with the fabulous endowments of adamant, may ere long become no merely speculative or conjectural requirement. Meanwhile, as already stated,' before Mr. Whitworth commenced to work on his own account, almost every known material for the manufacture of guns had he- come distrusted and obsolete. The utter failure of cast iron had been the immediate cause of the rupture between the Grovernment and himself. Sir William and this causes such an expansion of the gases, that they would fill 2,154 times the space which the powder originally occupied. The force of the pressuie ex«rted hy these gases has been estimated at from 14 to 80 tons upon each square inch. The mind fails to comprehend the tremendous pressure which must he exerted in the chamber of one of the large guns intended to operate against the iron plates. This enormous' force is generated instantaneously, not gradually as in the case of steam, and it acts upon the metal of the gun with a tremendous blow. In the case of an 80 lb. shot, a Telocity of 800 feet in a secondis communicated in the three-hundredth part of a second ; and in the case of a rifle bullet, the same Telocity is acquired in the three-thousandth part of a second. In the case of steam, its power is so well understood that it enables one to form some comparison with that of gunpowder. A small 3-pounder shot ejected from a gun at a Telocity of 1,300 feet per second, and with a force generated in the two-hundredth part of a second, requires a power equal in its mechanical efiect to that necessary to raise 1 lb. to 78,000 feet. One nominal horse-power is uniformly re- presented by 33,000 lbs. raised one foot high per minute, or 2|lbs. in the two-hundredth part of a second. The work performed by the eight ounces of powder used as a charge in a small 3-pounder gun is equal, therefore, to 28,000 horse-power. » Part II. chap. i. p. 85, &e. Chap. V.I BRASS AND WBOVGHT-IBON. 177 Armstrong had tried and been equally unsuccessful in hooping and rifling cast-iron guns.' Brass, with all its fine qualities, discloses infirmities which even for field guns rendered its power of endurance doubtful ; besides, its cost and weight interposed an obstacle to its intro- duction on any vast scale for the production of large ordnance. The imperfections incident to wrought iroyi in a solid form precluded its use, except as applied by Sir William Armstrong. But welded coil had not then, nor has it yet, manifested exemption from the common risk, when used with large charges in rifled guns of great calibre. Forced to resort to a substitute, Mr. Whitworth adopted the material to which he has given the name of ' homogeneous iron,' and which with the toughness and ductility of that metal combines the hardness and tenacity of steel. In its preparation, bars of the finest charcoal iron are cut into short lengths and melted in crucibles ; the contents of which, after being collected and cast into ingots, are forged by steam-hammers of prodigious power and weight. The preparation of metal by this process has been suc- cessfally carried on in England ; but the greatest estab- lishment for its^ production in Europe is that of M. Krupp, at Essen, in Khenish Prussia. There the larger masses are forged by an enormous hammer, the head of which, its piston and rod, weighs 50 tons ; and this witb ' See Evidence of the House of Common^ Committee on OrdnancCy 1863, 3,228, as to the tendency of brass to ' crush and draw out in. length ' when guns are fired with large charges. ' N 178 HOMOGENEOUS lEON. [Part U. a fall of ten feet, accelerated by steam acting above, strikes a blow equal to 2,000 tons weight.' The tenacity of metal forged under such conditions is attested by the fact that a bar of Krupp's iron one inch square has borne a weight of 50 tons, when one of common wrought iron broke under the strain of 33 tons. Dr. Abel, the head of the chemical depart- ment of the Eoyal Factory at Woolwich, has stated that a gun of this metal cast at Essen had been tested in this country, and that ' it was found almost impossible to burst it.' ^ This inference was sustained by a statement of Mr. Whitworth, made to the Institute of Civil Engineers in I860,' in relation to his own experiments with homogeneous iron, when used for small arms and muskets. 'He had put into a rifle-barrel, 1 inch in diameter at the breech, with a bore of -49 inch, a leaden plug 18 inches long, as tightly as it could be driven home ; it was fired with an ordinary charge of powder, and the long leaden plug being expanded by the explosion remained in the barrel, the gases generated by the gunpowder all passing out through the touch- hole, which was small and lined with platina. The lead was then melted out of the barrel, and the same experi- ment repeated four times, with the same results.' * ' This process of forging has of late been facilitated, in Sheffield, by casting the metal into cylinders, which are hammered on a mandril ; the force of the blow being intensified by reducing the thickness of the object struck. ^ M. Keupp, I understand, is at present constructing a steam-hammer of 100 tons for this manufacture. ^ Proceedings of the InstittUion of Civil Engineers, 1860, p. 85. * Ibid. p. 110. Chap, v.] STEEL. 179 So far as concerns the soldier's musket, Mr. Whitworth was therefore satisfied that the homogeneous metal was sufficiently strong to resist the greatest strain to which in practice it could ever be subjected ; but whatever might be its sufficijency for small arms and field-pieces, its suitability for artillery and heavy ordnance was still open to question. Mr. Anderson, the Assistant Engineer at Woolwich, expressed doubts of its durability, and looked upon it ' as most uncertain in character, one gun stand- ing well, whilst another burst without warning, the same care being bestowed on each by the founder.' ' Sir William Armstrong shared the same distrust of iron forged in large masses ; ^ and Mr. Whitworth, after numerous trials of the new material, gave it as the result that ' in employing homogeneous iron for rifled guns, experience alone can determine the proper temper. It must be hard enough,' he said, ' to resist wear, the action of the gases of explosion, but not so hard as to cause the metal to crack instead of bulging, when acted upon by a pressure greater than it is calcidated to bear.' ^ Thus, cautiously treated, and with becoming care, he was hopeful that large ordnance, as well as smaller guns for field service, might be made of homo- geneous iron, without the precaution of encasing the former with hoops of the same material.'' Down to the present time, however, this sanguine ' Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1860, p. 69. ' Ibid. Discussion on National Defences, 1860-61, p. 83, and Address to the Society/ of Mechanical Engineers, at Sheffield, 1861. ' Letter to the Times, October 31, 1861. * Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1860, p. 111. N 2 180 BUB8T CANNON. [Part 11 anticipation has not been fully realised. Light field- pieces, and even 12-pounderSj have been successfully and securely made by boring and rifling solid blocks ; but for guns of a large calibre, the necessity has not yet been dispensed with of strengthening the barrel by surrounding it with concentric hoops of the same metal. Nor have the latter in every instance withstood the force of explosion ; and although accidental causes have been assig-ned in individual instances to account for such mishaps, the liability to their recurrence is demonstra- tive of the fact that the art of the metallurgist has not hitherto kept pace with the advancing necessities of the gun-maker ; and that a metal of inexpugnable tenacity is still the grand desideratum of the military engineer.' Nor are the evidences of this peculiar to any one de- scription of metal, or confined to the productions of any particular aspirant in gunnery : for the terrace on the Thames, between the margin of the river and the fapade of the Eoyal Factory at Woolwich — which by a stroke of grim humour has acquired the name of the ' cemetery ' — is thickly strewn with the carcases of bursted cannon, of every known species of iron, and of almost every attempted construction, torn into fantastic fragments by the untameable fury of gunpowder. In the process adopted by Mr. Whitworth for making- heavy ordnance, the inner tube is formed out of one piece of homogeneous iron, and its external diameter ' See the evidence of Sir William Armstrong on the question of steel and metal for giins in general. Evidence of the House of Committee on Ordnance, 1863, p.lSi. a Cka'p. v.] m. WHITWORTirS SYSTEM OF BIFLING. 181 tapers about an inch in every 100 inches of its length. Over this, the hoops, also of homogeneous metal, and each from twenty to forty inches long — their interior surface being fitted with mathematical accuracy to the exterior surface of the tube — are forced slowly on by hydraulic pressure till the requisite amount of tension, which is easily calculated, is arrived at. Thus, heating the metal for welding hoops, or for ' shrinking ' them on, as practised at Woolwich, is altogether dis- pensed within the construction of the Whitworth gun. A second series of hoops is in like manner drawn over the first, and in the largest cannon a third, or even a fourth, is super-imposed by the same process. The ac- companying section of a muzzle-loading gun, cal- culated to fire a projectile of 70 lbs., exhibits the arrangement of the hoops, and the relative positions of the projectile, wad, and charge. The rifiing of the cannon in Mr. Whitworth's factory of course presented no new feature ; it was the same which had been uniformly applied, since experience had determined the principle, and shown its applica- bility to fire-arms of every size and description. One peculiarity, however, of his system as applied to artillery, consisted in the diameter of the bore being unifoim throughout the entire length of the barrel, without leaving any ' chamber ' or recess to contain the charge of powder, at the end next the breech. In this it differed from the Armstrong gun, in which, as the projectile was to be rifled by compression during its passage through the grooves in the barrel, it was in- 182 SECTION. [Part n. BA AB WHITWOETH MUZZLE-LOADING TO-POUNBEE. A A The internal tube rifled hexagonally. B B The first series of hoops forced on by hydraulic pressure. c c Additional hoops placed on exteriorly to the above. 1) The breech, mth the aperture at e to admit the friction fuse. r The charge. G The rifled projectile. Chap, r.] PROJECTILES. 183 dispensable to have the aperture wider at the breech, where the projectile was to enter, than at the muzzle of the gun, whence it was to issue after being forced through the whirls of the rifling. The manifest ad- vantages of Mr. Whitworth's arrangement were, not only that the gun was a muzzle-loader, as well as a breech- loader, but that it also possessed the faculty of per- mitting the weight of the projectile to be increased by increasing its length to any extent compatible with the power of the piece to resist the increased strain. In fact, from the same gun he fired a spherical ball of a diameter equal to one calibre, and one whose length was equal to ten calibres ; as well as others of in- termediate gradations.' Besides solid shotj the guns were calculated to fire shell of every variety, even those filled with molten iron. The credit of determining the superiority of an elon- gated to a spherical projectile, belongs to a period much earlier than our own ; but Mr. Whitworth is entitled to the merit not only of demonstrating thai projectiles of any requisite length might be fired with- out the risk of ' turning over ' during their flight, by increasing the velocity of their rotation in a like pro- portion ;^ but that greater precision could be imparted to them by accurately shaping the shot so as to cause it to centre itself within the polygonal rifling of the gun. For field-pieces and heavy guns he made the projec- ' See illustration p. 184. ^ Sep ante., Part I. eh. iii. p. 39. 184 ELONGATED SHOT. [Pari II. tiles of iron, fitting them to the bore, by means of self-acting machinery, at so trivial a cost, that the ex- penses for wages did not exceed Id. /^ for each shot of twelve pounds;' V and for certain services they may be merely cast, the hexagonal shape being given by the mould. To shot of this description excep- tion has been taken by Sir William Armstrong and others, that the wear of the gun would be precipitated by the friction between its surface and that of the hard metal projectile, and also that the unyielding nature of the latter would involve the danger of 'jamming,' and the con- sequent destruction of the piece. Mr. Whitworth has met these objections by the fact that in practice the latter accident has not occurred ; and that experience has shown that after long continuous firing even with brass EXPERIMENTAL PBOJEC- ° TILES riKEB FHOM THE guus, tile proper wads being used, no SAME ■WHITWORTH GUN. appreciable wear and tear was caused by the iron projectile. Without limiting observation to projectiles and guns, the familiar instance of the piston and cylinder of a steam-engine, or the bearings of a revolving crank, are sufficiently illustrative of the ' Froceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1859-60, p. 108. Charges still lower were named by Mr. "Whitwoeth before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1863. See Evidpiwr. 2497, &e. p. 108. CUp. v.] DURATION. 185 fact, that with proper lubrication the contact of the hardest metals may be attended by no serious injury from friction.^ One of the earliest Whitworth guns, after firing 1,500 shots, showed no more sign of abra- sion than when it first left the workman's hands. Be- sides, the damage, if any, from friction must be mutual, it must be equally exhibited on the projectile as well as on the gun; but so far from this being apparent, projectiles fired from the Whitworth guns are constantly, picked lip in a condition so perfect as to be capable of being fired over again. Whatever weight there may be in the apprehension of excessive friction, it remains as yet unattested ; and the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance in 1863, have stated in their RepoH that ' Evidence of the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863, 3165, 3925, 3949. Capt. Hewlett {Evidence, 3309, &c.) was of the same opinion, but his experience of the Whitworth gun had been confined to the cast-iron 8()-pounder which burst on board the ' Excellent ' in 1859. See Part III. chap. iii. p. 254. On the subject of friction Mr. Whitwoeth stated as follows to the Committee of the House of Commons in 1863 : — ' The wear in my guns is comparatiTely very small. There is wear in all guns, arising from the effects of the explosion of the powder, but owing to the great extent of the surfaces of the projectiles in contact with the bore of the gun, the wear due to friction is reduced in my guns to a miuimum' (2466). In the course of the enquiry by the House of Commons' Committee in 1863, it was stated that a battery of brass guns; 12-pounders, supplied to the Government by Mr. Whitworth in 1862, had sufferedfrom friction by the projectile ; to which Mr. Whitworth added the expression of his surprise that they had not suffered much more than they did ; inasmuch as, from some unexplained oversight, they had actually been fired without wads, 'without one particle of lubrication, and without one drop of water being used for 100 rounds. Such a thing was never known or dreamed, that surfaces sliding upon one another should be used without lubrica- tion.' Evidence of the House of Commons' Committee, 1863 : 2672, 3018, &e. 186 TAFESED END. [Part II. 'no sufficient experiments have been tried' with the Whitworth gun to show whether his projectiles are liable to this objection.' There is one peculiarity in the external shape of the Whitworth elongated projectile, the effects of which are suggestive of curious conjecture. The original form adopted by him for the rifled musket was a cylinder, the anterior section being terminated by a somewhat , conical front; the sides being carried on parallel to the extreme end.^ With it during his first trials in 1857, he obtained the extreme ranges already alluded to. But the rifling lines acting like rudders, gave a bias to the bolt during its flight ; a defect which was corrected by making it taper towards the rear. This produced a remarkable improvement in the range, imparting both flatness of trajectory and precision of flight. This result had been anticipated, as it was inferred that the rear of the shot, being tapered like the run of a ship, the air displaced in front during the flight of the projectile, and which in the case of a powerful cylinder would press on the sides and retard it, would, the end being tapered, close in rapidly in the rear, and force it forward; as the closing in of the water adds to the onward motion of the vessel.^ The effect was extraordinary ; the range being in- creased from 2,000 yards, with the paralled projectile, to ' Beports &e. p. viii. ' See Part I. chap. iii. p. 38. ' See a Paper by Mr. Aston on the Sepori of the British Association, 1861. Transactions of Sections, p. 2.54. Evidence, Home of Commons' Cnmmittce. 1863 ; 2.58. Chap, v.] WHITWORTH SHOT. 187 2,500 with the tapered one, the proportion increasing at longer ranges. The correction of 'the lateral deviation was equally important; and, in short, this change hy i-educing retardation became equivalent to an increase of propelling force. CYLINDEICAL WHITWORTH PBOJECTHE. TAPERED WHITWORTH PROJECTILE. In the original shape, a rifled cylindrical projectile with the sides parallel throughout their entire extent was capable of being driven 5,000 yards, or nearly three miles, but by this apparently simple alteration in the rear it was sent 7,000 yards, or nearly one mile farther, although the charge of powder and the elevation of the gun were alike in each instance. This tapering form is also favourable to the lubrica- tion of the gun by the use of the wad before described,' and is equally compatible with any amount of windage, thus rendering it as well adapted for muzzle-loading as for breech-loading guns.' As all guns whatsoever, when repeatedly fired, become more or less 'fouled' ' See ante, Part I. chap. iii. p. 55. 188 WINDAGE. [Part II. by the residuum of the exploded powder, 'easy loading ' by the muzzle must be provided for by allow- ina: the necessary ' windage ' in the gun. That is to say, the projectile as it enters must fit it so loosely as not to be stopped by any accumulated deposits on the barrel, or even by imprisoned air, which would prevent it being ' rammed home.' To provide for such contin- gencies, the expedient resorted to by Mr. Whitworth was to remove that portion from each half side of the hexagonal bore of the gun on which the right half side of the projectile bears as it goes in, thus enabling it to enter with what is in fact a ' loose fit,' but as in leaving the gun, the shot bears upon the opposite half sides of the hexagonal bore which have not been eased off, the fit becomes close, and the projectile issues with its axis in line with that of the piece.' As regards the firing of shells, Sir William Armstrong at one time doubted the desirability of throwing shells as well as solid shot from one and the same gim, and thought it preferable to have separate guns ; but this was before he had succeeded in making his admirable segment shell, already alluded to.^ Mr. Whitworth from ' In addition to his other projectiles Mr. Whitworth used a tubular one for penetrating wood and other soft substances, by which a core, or cylinder, nearly 2 feet long, and 1^ inch in diameter, has been cut out of a solid oak block, through which it was fired from a 24-pounder rifled brass howitzer. The tubulaoc form was also found to be the best for ' penetrating masonry. ^ See ant", Part II. chap. ii. p. 114. In the Report on Rifled Guns, fur- nished to the War Office, July 14, 1855, Sir William Aemsteong says of his own gun, as it was at that time constructed : ' It may, per- haps, be objected to this gun, that, from the smallness of the bore, it Chap, v.] BREECH LOADING. 189 the first appears to have beeu confident that the same kind of projectiles, solid or hollow, which are used for smooth-bore cannon, were' capable of being used in rifled ordnance, although fears were expressed by others that the rapid pitch of the rifling would be liable to bruise a shell, and tear it to pieces in the barrel.' The earliest attempt was sufiicient to dissipate this appre- hension ; amongst the very first experiments hexagonal shells were fired with the same security as hexagonal shot ; and with the farther advantage, over a spherical shell, and also over the Armstrong shell, that the hexa- gonal cylinder admits of being made of various lengths and capacities, for various distances and requirements, and each adapted to the calibre of one and the same gun, which they do not. Breech loading has been a seductive problem for gun-makers at almost every period subsequent to the discovery of gunpowder, and the inventive mind of Mr, Whitworth was too susceptible to be indifferent to its allurements. But it did not require a very long ex- perience to lead him to the conviction that there is no advantage attainable by breech loading to compensate for the inevitable loss of simplicity and strength. The public, however, were at the moment so captivated by this feature in the Armstrong gun, that it had become cannot be applied for throwing shells as well as solid projectiles ; but the fact is, these two purposes are incompatible with each other unless both be imperfectly attained, for while the one necessarily requires a large bore, the other demands a small one ; and it therefore seems pre- ferable to have separate guns especially adapted for each application.' See Appetidix to Seport of Ordnance Committee. 1862, p. 162, ' The Naval and Military Gazette, Satxirday, Feb. 24, 1860. 190 BBEECH LOADING. [Fart II. almost compulsory upon any competitor to display a, like attraction ; ' besides which Mr. Whitworth had the conviction that, mechanically regarded, the breech- loading apparatus of Sir William Armstrong was faulty, and that the object was attainable by a safer device. In his judgment a breech-loader should be rifled on a principle which, like the polygon, would admit, in cases of need, of the gun being used as a muzzle-loader also. The arrangement which he applied to his own gun was the least complex imaginable ; the breech was screwed to the barrel like that of any ordinary fowling- piece, with the difference that it is screwed on to instead of into it. In form it is a cap, with an internal screw fitted to an external one on the rear of the gun, and turned on and off by a handle. The screws are double threaded, so that the work is done by two and a half or three turns. The cap when off the breech is supported' by a hoop which being provided with a hinge-joint can be swung to one side to admit the insertion of the charge. The accompanying illustration ^ serves to ex- hibit the system, in which it will be observed that there is nothing to weaken that which oiight to be the ' ' In 1836 I advocated, aa I still do, the employment of the simple muzzle-loaders for field artiUery. . . But at that time the breech-hader was considered to be a great desideratum ; and the practicability of firing hard metal projectiles in contact with a metal bore was so mnch doubted, that the lead-coated shot of Sir William Armsteong was preferred, not- withstanding the complication of its construction and its much greater cost.'— Mr. "Whitwoeth, Letter to the Times, October 29, 1861. See also Evidence of the Home of Commons^ Committee on Ordnance, 1863, p. 107. ' See engraving to face p. 181. Chap, v.] LOADING. 191 strongest part of the gun, the breech. There is no reduction of its solidity, no slot, no vent-piece, and no movable appendage, liable to be injured or lost. In loading these guns from the muzzle there is no departure from the ordinary custom. In loading at the breech, a few backward turns of the handle un- screw the cap, which, being received and supported by the hoop, is swung back and to one side, leaving the aperture of the barrel open. Into this the projectile is pushed, and behind it is inserted the lubricating wad and the powder, enclosed in a tin cartridge case, hexa- gonally shaped, to adapt it to the bore. This, as it enters, pushes forward the projectile. The powder is retained in the cartridge by means of the wad, com- posed of a mixture of tallow and wax, and in the rear of the case is an orifice to correspond with the vent, which passes through the centre of the breech cap. The projectile and charge being duly lodged, the hinged hoop is swung round like a door, and a few forward turns of the screw fixes it firmly in its place. An ordinary friction fuse is then introduced into the vent, the operation of sighting being carried on simulta- neously ; and the fuse being then ignited by the jerk of the lanyard, the gun is discharged. The metallic cart- ridge assists in preventing the escape of gas from the breech ; and when the cap is again opened, the tin case is withdrawn by an ingenious instrument which grips and extracts it, bringing away with it all deposits, which would otherwise have fouled the barrel, the entire length of which is so effectually lubricated by the 192 ENDURANCE. [Part U. wad as to obviate the necessity for sponging or washing out the piece. The gun being rifled uniformly from muzzle to breech, and there being no powder chamber, it is equally available as a muzzle-loader or as a breech-loader ; and in the former case all that is required is to screw home the breech cap, placing in front of it a disc of copper, the expansion of which renders the joint im- pervious to the gas of explosion. Such is the strength of the parts in this apparatus, and such the simplicity of their adaptation, that Mr. Whitworth, long after- wards, was enabled to state that 'his breech-loading apparatus had, in no instance that he was aware of, been a failure. During the public experiments no accident or difficulty had ever occurred in working them.' ' Whilst occupied in making these guns on bis own account, Mr. Whitworth renewed communications with the War Office, the late Lord Herbert of Lea having succeeded to the charge of that department. In August 1859, he made suggestions to the Secretary of State, for utilising the existing stores of ordnance by hooping them, and increasing the number of angles in the rifling from a hexagon to a decagon, so as to bring the reduction of strength in the barrel to a minimum. But, notwithstanding this and other offers of coopera- tion, the War Office was apparently so little inclined to encourage his efforts that in September 1859, they refused his request to be furnished with copies of the ' Letter to the Times, Oetober 29, 1861. Chap, r.] THE SANSS. 193 official reports on rifled ordnance made up to that time by tlie Ordnance Select Committee. It was arranged, however, that early in the following spring he should have the opportunity of trying the powers of his new gun in penetrating iron plate. As no reserve was manifested relative to the works in progress at his own factory, public interest became excited to learn the results of experiments from which so much was expected, and at length, within little more than a year from the commencement of operations, he was provided with a series of field guns, 3, 12, and 18-pounders, which together with an 80-pounder were announced to be ready for immediate trial. The western coast of England, from the boundary of Cumberland to the estuary of the Dee, presents one un- varying feature, in the long and level plains of sand that mark the junction of the land and sea. They are occasioned by the rivers that descend from the highlands of Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and those which in the south drain the mountain regions on the confines of Wales. These streams come down laden with earthy deposit, which owing to contending currents they are unable to carry out to sea, and this settling in comparatively still water, forms banks, that are left bare between every tide. From these the sand dried by the sun is driven inwards by westerly winds, before which it may occasionally be seen running swiftly like the current of a river towards the shore, where it piles itself up in mounds, that are speedily covered by bent 194 SOUTHFOBT. [Part IT. and other hardy grasses that live in such exposed situations. One of the most remarkable of these formations is the low coast of Lancashire, between the Eibble and the Mersey, an almost unbroken line of sand many miles in extent. From the shallowness of the water ships seldom approach close to the shore, and human habitations are rare, except where villages have been built for the summer residence of bathers. It was a level expanse of this dreary shore within a short dis- tance of Southport that Mr. Whitworth, by permission of the Admiralty, selected for the trial of his guns. No place in the kingdom can present equal advantages for experiments with artillery, the range being immense, and the ground so level that the guns had to be raised on a platform in order to retain sight of the target or any other mark at a distance of three or four miles. Here, early in the spring of 1860, he took up a position for his park of artillery on the beach; and huts for himself, his assistants, and ammunition were constructed amongst the sand-hills near on the shore. The trials occupied five days between the 15th and 24th of February, and on each occasion the railroad brought crowds of eager spectators, who ranged them- selves in groups along the strand; an open space around the guns being enclosed by stakes and ropes and kept clear by police. The direction in which the firing was to take place was south, towards Formby, and this was denoted by a line of tall poles 1,000 Chap. F.] GSEAT RANGE. 195 yards apart with shorter ones at each 100 yards be- tween ; the whole extending over 10,000 yards, and thus marking out a range of something less than six miles. The success, as described by the ' Times,' was 'astound- ing, and the event looked forward to with so much eagerness by artillerists and engineers, surpassed their most sanguine expectations. The accuracy and length of range were totally beyond what had ever before been attained, and the greatest results of the Armstrong gun were likely to be surpassed by the ordnance of Mr. Whitworth.' ^ The experiments were so arranged as to exhibit not only the range of the new ordnance but the accurate flight of the projectiles. The smallest of the guns, the 3-pounder weighing only 208 lbs., fired at an elevation of 35°, threw a shot to the distance of 9,688 yards, or a little more than five miles and a half. This was an achievement never before accomplished by any gun of any calibre. 'The greatest range previously reached by any Armstrong gun was 9,130 yards, and this was with a 32-pounder fired with 6 lbs. of powder at an elevation of 35°.'^ It afterwards 'attained the astonishing range of 9,175 yards,' ^ but even this was 500 yards short of the performance of the Whitworth 3-pounder at Southport, 1 The Times, February 17, 1860. ' The TiTMS, February 20, 1860. ' See Beport of the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862. Appendix, No. 3, p. 167,' note. o 2 196 ME. SIDNEY HERBERT. [Part U. One characteristic feature of these trials and one specially satisfactory was, that the result of every shot fired was measured and recorded on the spot ; so that for the first time the public were enabled to see and appreciate the effect of consecutive firing from rifled ordnance, in the presence of impartial spectators. The Secretary of State for "War in moving the army estimates, whilst the trials were still in progress at Southport, stated that compared with this display of the Whitworth gun that of Sir "William Armstrong ' might shoot a little short, but Sir "William has not yet made a gun with a view to the special object of range. He said to me a few days ago, when speaking of the "Whitworth gun, " That gun will no doubt beat mine in range, if it is made for range ; but I will make one for range also, and you will then see what I shall do with Mr. Whitworth's." This,' continued Mr. Sidney Herbert, ' is perfectly fair. Sir William Armstrong is not the man to be daunted by a difficulty, and there is no doubt that whatever happens we shall have from him the best and most admirable gun that can be made.' ' But in range Mr. Whitworth has since surpassed the startling performance of 1860; his 12-pounder gun having sent a ball 10,300 yards, or very little short of su miles. The gun promised by Mr. Herbert has not yet been produced. In fact, almost simultaneously with Mr. Sidney Herbert's announcement, Sir William Armstrong, in addressing the members of the Institution of Civil ' Souse of Commons, The Times, Februaiy 18, 1860, Chap, r.] SANGE. 197* Engineers, questioned the value of any increase of range beyond that already attained, which the military authorities agreed was even more than sufiScient for all field operations. 'The public,' he said, 'is always captivated by the attainment of long ranges, but great delusion prevails on the subject.' Such extreme dis- tances render accuracy of aim impossible. The real struggle will always lie within a distance of 2,000 yards, and 'the fact is that, however perfect the weapons may be made, the fate of a battle will never be influenced by very distant firing.' ' These views of Sir William Armstrong as to range seemed to diS"er from that of the Committee of 1858, by whom his own gun was selected for the service, and who recommended it for adoption in consideration of 'its extraordinary powers of range combined with an equal precision of fire,' and under the belief that its ' range was probably the greatest on record.' ^ In justi- fication of this course. Colonel Lefroy has given his opinion that length of range is more or less identified with precision of fire. ' To a certain extent,' he says in his Keport on the State of Eifled Cannon, ' the question of accuracy Tnay, in the first instance, be merged in that of range, for whatever construction will send an elongated projectile of a given weight farthest, with the same charge, must necessarily have the advantage in ' Proceedings of the Inst, of Civil Engin. 1860, Discussion on the Construction of Artillery, p. 124. ^ Seport of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862. Appendix, No. 3, p. 167. 198 LOW TBAJECTOEY. [PartU. point of accuracy, because it implies the greatest steadi- ness of the axis, and the least amount of irregular disturbing causes.' ' In this explanation Colonel Lefroy has the concur- rence of Sir John F. Burgoyne, who has declared that ' great length of range, if not of so much importance in itself, is valuable as an indication of other qualities. It is a proof of superior accuracy, and above all it gives the power of firing at lower angles of eleva- tion.'' ^ Mr. Whitworth, in reply to the observations of Sir William Armstrong, expressed his 'surprise to hear range undervalued by him. Without attaching too great importance to mere range, it must be admitted,' he said, 'to be a very good measure of what the gun could do. If, at an elevation of 7°, the range of the fluted gun was 2,495 yards, and the range of the hexagonally rifled 3,107 yards, the trajectory of the latter was flatter, and the errors in judging distance were of less importance, as during a greater portion of its flight the hexagonal projectile was nearer the ground. The gun which had the longer range and the flatter trajectory was more likely to hit a distant object than one which had one-fifth less ' Seport, Sfc, Appendix No. 1, p. 143, ' Froceedings of the Inst, of Civil Engin., Discussion on the Con- struction of Artillery, 1860, p. 68. This was in strict conformity with the dictum of Sir Howakd Dodglas, that the great object in the modem science of gunnery is to construct guns possessing the greatest power of range ; ' the trajectories of which shall be as low or as flat as possible.' Naval Gunnery, part iii. chap. t. p. 224, Chap, v.] PRECISION. 199 range for the same elevation.' ' In a letter to the ' Times,' ^ he disclaimed the idea of making range the main object, and treating other qualities as merely subordinate ; and the farther experiments at Southport seemed to sustain his assertion, that accuracy and precision were equally possessed by his guns. In the course of Mr. Sidney Herbert's speech above quoted, delivered whilst these trials were still going on, he de- scribed what may be assumed to be the best results as regards precision obtained by the Armstrong gun up to that period. The last gun made by Sir William, he said, was a 12-pounder, and in four shots at 7° elevation, and with a range of from 2,465 to 2,495 yards (the difference in range being 65 yards) the greatest difference in width was three yards. With the Whitworth gun of the same calibre, and fired at the same elevation, on Feb- ruary 21, 1860, the range was from 3,078 to 3,107 yards (the difference in range being but 29 yards), whilst the difference in width was only one yard and two-thirds. 'As to precision, therefore, taking the whole, the Whitworth shots would have struck upon an area of 42 yards long by 5 feet wide, as against the Armstrong average of 70 yards long by 9 feet wide; and the whole of the Whitworths would have hit not withia a nine, but within a six feet vertical target.' ' Nor was the performance of the Whitworth 80- ' Proceedings of the Inst, of Civil Engin., Discussion on the Con^ siruetion of ArtUUry, 1860, p. 139. ^ Report, #c., The Times, Feb. 28, 1860. * Report, 4'c., The Spectator, Maieh 7, 1860. 200 SOUTHPOBT TRIALS. [PartU. pounder less satisfactory; at an elevation of 7°, its shooting would appear to have been even more accurate than that of the 12-pounder. The range attained by it was about two miles ; and, out of four shots, three fell within an area of sixteen yards long by one foot wide. The lateral deviation did not exceed 6 feet in the two extremes, and this, it was stated, was due, at least in part, to the unsteadiness of the wind.' In addition to the British officers present at South- port., the trials were attended by French artillerists, and scientific military men from Austria, Sweden, the United States, and Brazil ; and at the close of the day the expression of opinion was unanimous as to the facility with which the guns had been loaded and • One ground of complaint against Mr. Whit-woeth's projectiles, in tie early stage of his experiments, was ' their large and rapidly increasing deflection to the right' (see Beport of the Committee of 1858). This tendency was not peculiar to them alone, it was apparent in the Armstrong projectile as well; and Sic Whliam, in the statement which he made, descriptive of his own gun, before the Institution of CiTil Engineers in 1860 (p. 179), ascribed its development in both instances to the true cause, the action of air on the rifled surface of the shot. Mr. Whitwokth, whew questioned on the subject by Sir John Hat, M.P., before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1863, said (question 2558): 'That is one of the objections raised to my gun and projectile at that time, and I can only express my surprise at such an objection being made, because we find that it depends entirely on the direction of the wind ; the shot will go to the left or to the right just according to the wind, and, therefore, I maintain that it is no objection at all.' In proof of the entire correctness of this explanation it is suffi- cient to say, that whereas the Committee of 1858 described the deflec- tion aa 'large and rapidly increasing to the right,' The Times, in an account of the experiments at Southport, correctly stated that the deviation was to the left, and that this arose from 'a rather strong wind which set in from the sea.' The Times, Feb. 17. Gimp, r.] BICOCHET. 201 handled by Mr. Whitwortli's own people, and the rapidity with which they were discharged and reloaded.' ' There was no heating worthy of notice, either at the breech or the muzzle, no sponging or cleaning of any kind, and though, of course, the smell of powder was in the barrel, the gun was as clean after the firing was over as before it commenced.' " One foreign officer, doubtful of the closeness and security of the breech- loading apparatus, held a white handkerchief over the screw of the breech before the 80-pounder was fired, in order to satisfy himself of its perfect tightness, and after the discharge he looked with evident astonishment and satisfaction at the unsullied cambric' It had previously been imputed, as a defect common to all conoidal projectiles, that that form is unfavour- able to ricochet, for which nothing was so suitable as spherical shot.'* ' Eicochet ' is the term applied to the series of rebounds made by a ball after the first graze ; it may be regarded as a means of inflicting damage on > The Times, Feb. 17, and Feb. 27, 1860. » The Times, Feb. 17. » Letter to The Times, Mareb 3, 1860. * Sir Howard Dotiqlas has given some very curious instances of the unspent power of a rieochetting ball. 'At the siege of Burgos,' be says, 'our shot having been all expended, soldiers were employed and paid for picking up the balls fired by the enemy, to be used against them, regardless in such an emergency of the difference of windage. Many of our soldiers were seriously hurt, some it was said killed, in attempting to lift 161b. and 241b. shot, which appeared to be roUing like cricket balls, and as if they might be easily stopped. One soldier tried to do so with his foot, but it fractured his limb, and threw him down severely contused, and rolled on with a momentum, though with very little velocity, which would have done great damage to troops.' Navat Cfimnert/, part iii. ch. v. p. 232, 202 DEFLECTION. [PartK troops or artillery, who cannot be otherwise reached; and its value, both in land and naval actions, has been always appreciated when in the direct line of fire. In all elongated projectiles, but especially Mr. Whitworth's, ricochet is said to be prejudiced by the system of rifling, which imparts a tendency to deflect.^ This statement is only to a certain extent correct : it is, I believe, true that elongated shot are incapable of ricochet at sea ; and that all rifled shot fired a ricochet are more or less turned from their course when penetrating soft or wet sand, but not usually when striking comparatively hard ground. At Southport, Mr. Whitworth demon- strated that conical shot would ricochet well, and at a subsequent discussion at the Institute of Civil Engineers, he stated that, having tested both, he gave it a prefer- ence in this respect over spherical shot.^ Sir William Armstrong, as the result of his own experience, states that at ranges within which smooth-bore guns are effective (as regard ricochet) the rifle projectile does very well : at least his own does. ' There is no difficulty,' he says, 'in making a rifle propel ricochet at a low angle, and it is only at high angles that they go wild.' ' ' See note on tMs subject, ante, p. 200. ' Proceedings of the Inst, of Civil Engin. 1860, Discussion on the Constritetion of Artillery, p. 156. In July 1860, during subsequent official trials with the Whitworth guns, an eyewitness, whose report appeared in the Manchester Guardian, July 26, says, ' The ricochetting both of shoib and shell was, professionally speaking, "beautiful;" that is they touched and rose from the ground many times, and never high, so that amongst bodies of men or horses they would have " told" constantly and well.' ' Evidence of the House of Commons' Committee, 1863, 3166. Chap. K.] THE 'PEINCIPLE' VINDICATED. 203 The general result of the Southport trials, the ' Times ' of P'ebruary 20, 1850, summed up as follows : — ' As regards range and accuracy, Mr. Whitworth's ordnance have as yet distanced all others ; and the difference in those respects between his guns and Mr. Arm- strong's, though not very great, is, in truth, of the utmost importance. The superiority is due to the form of projectile, and the pitch and manner of rifling adopted by Mr. Whitworth; and it is upon these points, and on the simplicity of the arrangement of the breech- loading apparatus, that the contest between them will turn.' One triumph, at least, Mr. Whitworth had achieved by this display — he had successfully vindicated his professional reputation, and removed the reproach incautiously cast upon it the year before by excluding his ' principle ' of rifling from farther notice by the authorities at the War Office. That principle was so rapidly reinstated in public confidence that, even before the Southport trials were ended, Mr. Sidney Herbert assured the House of Commons that, as between the two systems of Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whit- worth there was so slight a difference that, ' whichever of the two rival inventions wins, we are 'perfectly safe.'' ' But, as regards the government of the country, an embarrassing conjuncture had arrived ; the event, the probability of which had been foreseen by the Earl of Derby in 1858,^ had arrived sooner than was expected, • House of Commms, Feb. 18, 1860. '■' See ante, Part II. chap. iv. p. 145. 204 NEW TBJALS. [ParilL and, notwithstanding the apprehension expressed by Sir James Graham, it remained unprovided for; a gun, which in certain respects was represented to be superior to that already adopted by the War OfEce, was now at the disposal of the Grovernment. But the difficulty had become palpable of superseding the one, if necessary, or even of instituting an unimpeachable trial for the other. The previous choice of the Armstrong gun, would be practically condemned should the amended judgment prove to be in favour of the Whitworth ; and that judg- ment, if promptly acted iipon, would involve the coun- try in the cost of a new ' transition,' after the expendi- ture already incurred in erecting factories and providing stores of ammunition and ordnance. A trial, however, appeared inevitable ; and, within one week from the close of the practice at Southport, Mr. Whitworth addressed the Secretary of State for War, explaining the points of difference between his own guns and those of Sir William Armstrong, and desiring to have their comparative merits tested. To this Mr. Sidney Herbert at once assented, and thus, within little more than a year from the announce- ment of that decision of the Committee on Rifled Ordnance, in 1858, which ought to have been con- vincing and final, the War Department found itself constrained to reopen the whole enquiry, by au- thorising a new trial, which was substantially an appeal from the unsatisfactory finding by the pre- vious tribunal. This renewed, trial however never took place, owing Chav. r.] CONDITIONS CLAIMED. 205 to the following circumstance. The judges whom the War Office proposed to nominate, were the Ordnance Select Committee of the War Department, whose great professional experience invests their opinions with becoming weight, especially when the Secretary of State happens to be a civilian. One member of that body, Sir William Wiseman, E.N., had been also a member of the Select Committee who in 1858 had decided in favour of the Armstrong gpn. The experi- ments were to be carried on at Shoeburyness, and the progi-amme was to be drawn up by the Ordnance Committee. Mr. Whitworth in reply to Mr. Sidney Herbert's communication, whilst adveirting to the fact that the Committee whom he had now to convince were already more or less committed to preconceived views ; and that experiments of indefinite length were to be conducted on the parade ground of the rival gun with which his was to compete, said he was, nevertheless, prepared to accept the ordeal, provided only that certain conditions equally applicable to both parties were complied with. He stipulated for such a course of experiments as would demonstrate the power of each gun, independent of the skill of the artillerymen who might be told off to handle them. He required that the experiments should be continued from day to day till completed ; and suggested that instead of Shoebury- ness they might take place on some new and untried ground, and that facilities should be given for the presence of scientific civilians as well as military officials^ A farther request of Mr. Whit-jrorth was, that each 206 THE SOUTSPOBT 80-POUNDES. [Part 11. party was to be at liberty to employ his own men in firing bis own guns. This was refused ; the War Office agreed to certain modifications in the original draft, but the majority of Mr. Whitworth's proposals being considered , inadmissible, he was eventually com- pelled, on finding that no section of the necessary experiments could be closed and reported on within a reasonable time, to acquaint Mr. Sidney Herbert that his health would, not enable him to enter on an inter- minable contest, nor would his professional engage- ments permit it. He, therefore, declined to proceed under the conditions sought to be imposed.^ Meanwhile the 80-pounder gun which had excited so much astonishment by its performance at Southport, was taken thence to the Thames, in order to try the force of the flat-fronted projectile, which Mr. Whitworth had recently invented,^ when fixed against the armour^ plate of a vessel of war. The occurrences of that day, one of the most naemorable in the annals of modern gunnery, will be described in another place ; here it is only necessary to state, that the projectile in every ' Eor an account of these negotiations, and the causes of the failure, see the oTidence of General St. George, before the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, in 1862. (Questions 2708-9, &c.) ' On one occasion,' said the General, ' when I went to the Admiralty, Mr. "Whitwoeth was there ; and when we came out, he himself told me that he felt obliged to decline the trial ; he said he had not much otm- fidence in the Committee, He said he should wish the matter referred to one individual ; he had no objection either to myself, or amy other competent Judge ; but he preferred the matter being referred to an indi- vidual rather than to a Committee. ' See ante, p. 122, a,jii. post, Part III. chap. iii. p. 260. Chap, r.l FBESH TBIAL. 207 instance penetrated the iron sides of the ' Trusty,' and would have sunk her by a few more shots ' had not the firing been stopped by the interposition of the Lords of the Admiralty who were present. Struck with the unexampled power of the gun, the Duke of Somer- set suggested to the War Office the propriety of acquir- ing it for the Government, and the Secretary of State proposed to Mr. Whitworth to buy both it and the 12- pounder ; but preparatory to their purchase he required farther trials with a view to forming a just opinion of their rifling and projectiles, and thus assisting to arrive at some final decision on the whole subject.^ These far- ther trials took place at Southport; the War Office so far modifying their previous determination as to permit the guns to be worked by Mr. Whitworth's men, but with the stipulation that one half of the rounds were to be fired by artillerymen and sailors, in order to be assured of their convenience in working. The results were so satisfactory that the Grovernment became pos- sessed of both the 12 and the 80-pounder, the latter being forthwith sent to Portsmouth for practice, and the former to Shoeburyness. The story of this 80-pounder, had the catastrophe by which it ended been less vexatious, would present an apt illustration of the difficulties before alluded to, with which Mr. Whitworth had to contend in struggling against military routine and exclusiveness. The renewed ' Evidence of the House of •Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, 5183, &o. ' Mr. SmsEY Heebbbt, Letter to Mr. Whitworth, Jtily 12, 1860. 208 SUCCESS, [PartU. trial took place at Southport, on July 25, 1860, General St. George and Colonel Bingham of the Eoyal Artillery being present on behalf of the War Depart- ment. From the report of these gentlemen, which was made public three years after,' it appears that the assent of the Secretary of State to allow the workmen who were familiar with the guns to fire them, at least in part, was only a good-humoured ruse of Lord Her- bert to amuse Mr. Whitworth. 'The guns,' says the report of the two ofiBcers, ' were fired a few rounds by Mr. Whitworth's men previously, but of these we took 710 note ; — they were then handed over to the Eoyal Artillery, and to seamen of the Eoyal Navy, and the practice recorded was carried on entirely under our direction.' The result was that General St. George and Colonel Bingham were of opinion that sufficient promise of advantage had been given to warrant the purchase of the gun, but they recommended a farther series of experiments ' to ascertain its real value.' ^ To determine this, the gun was sent to Portsmouth to have its merits tested by experienced hands on board one of the training ships. But it had scarcely arrived before Mr. Whitworth was written to to send a person to examine the breech-loading apparatus, which was stated to be out of order. The workman sent from Manchester discovered that the only thing astray was that the gun had been fouled at the breech by soot ' See Appendix, No. 43, to the Report of the Home of Ccmmom' Com- mittee, 1863. 2 lUd. p. 476. Chap, v.] THE GXIN SPOILED. 209 and dirt as well as by the use of bad oil ; and that the sailors in their impatience had galled the screw by forcing it on in that condition. Shortly after, the gun, after iiring 2 1 rounds onboard the ' Excellent,' was found to have a crack in the inner tube between the breech and the muzzle. Mr. Anderson, the assistant of Sir WilHam Armstrong in the Eoyal Factory at Woolwich, was sent to examine into the cause of this mishap, and along with him were associated two eminent engineers, Mr. Penn and Mr. Field. Their joint report,' far from imputing the catastrophe to any defect in the gun, as- cribed it exclusively to an oversight in permitting an 'airspace' to remain between the projectile and the charge. This may possibly have been occasioned by the rolling of the vessel, during which the shot, unprotected by a sabot, may have shifted its place. The gun, being disabled by this misadventure, was shortly after sent to Woolwich to be there ' tested to destruction,^ by firing it with increasing charges in the bursting cell ; — but these had no other effect, than causing the crack made at Portsmouth to ex- pand, and they failed to rend the hoops, or blow up the gun. Yet this occurrence on board the 'Ex- cellent ' was afterwards adduced by its able com- mander, Captain Hewlett, as a reason for believing that ' the breech-loading arrangement of Mr. Whitworth ' Appendix, No. 53, Beport of the Ordnance Committee of the House of Commons, 1863, p. 528. See also the Evidence of Mr. Whitwobth. lUd. 2996. 210 THE WAR OFFICE. {Fart U. is faulty." Thus, an' accident which ordinary pru- dence should have prevented, not only destroyed the piece, ' the real value ' of which was to be tested ; hut served to defeat the avowed object of the Secretary of State in purchasing the gun for the Grovernment, ' with a view,' as he said, ' to forming an opinion on the general principles of the Whitworth system, and thus assisting to arrive at some final decision on the subject.' Good feeling and confidence were however restored between the War Department and Mr. Whitworth, whose assistance was solicited in experiments for deter- mining the resistance of iron plates, as well as in the supply of guns and projectiles for departmental pur- poses, but with no indication of any intention to adopt them into the general service of the army or navy. Mr. Whitworth, it appears from the published evi- dence, was at that time suffering from impaired health, the result of over-exertion and anxiety, and was there- fore the more disposed to wait with patience the course of events which would lead to that searching and decisive enquiry which his own efforts had hitherto failed to obtain. During the three years that followed the aspect of affairs apparently underwent no alteration. Mr. Whit- worth continued, at his works, to manufacture such of his own guns as he had orders for from foreign ' Evidence of the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1S63, Q. 3344, 3345, 3346. CUf. v.] EL8WWK. 211 governments, and at Elswick and Woolwich Armstrong guns of all calibres, from a 12 to a 300-pounder, were made to the number of 3000.' The 40-pounder, as already stated, was introduced into the navy in the spring of 1859, by a committee of which Sir William Armstrong was a member, and in the autumn of the same year the 110-pounder was added to the same service without the formality of trial. Sir William Armstrong, when asked in 1863, by what series of ex- periments that gun was approved, replied, 'None at all, the pressure for rifled guns at that moment ren- dering it impossible to undertake any.' ^ In fact, it is stated by the Duke of Somerset, that Armstrong guns of every calibre were taken into the service with- out a trial in any instance, excepting that of the 40- pounder;' — on which latter occasion its inventor and Captain Noble (afterwards one of the partners at Elswick) formed two out of the four members of the committee by whom it was sanctioned. The expenditure during the same period, at Woolwich and at Elswick, for the manufacture of Armstrong guns, carriages, and ammunition, exceeded two millions and a half sterling,* defrayed from the public treasury ; whilst the outlay of all other inventors for experiments ' See Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863, p. v. '' Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863, p. V. Evidence, 3549. ' Evidence o/the Duke of Someeset. IMd. 6178. ' £2,539,547 175. M. Report, ibid. p. v. P 2 212 SIB WILLIAM WISEMAN. {Part 11. with rifled cannon, were borne exclusively from their private resources, although the results, in the instance of Mr. Whitworth, were thrown open gratuitously to the Grovernment. Notwithstanding the few opportunities for exhibiting its powers, public favour continued to be attracted towards the Whitworth gun, and one of the members of the special committee by whom it had been rejected in 1858, stated, on a later occasion, that from what he had then seen, he thought it in range and accuracy quite equal to those of Sir William Armstrong.' Theoretical opinions, however, continued to be expressed unfavourable to the principle of a mechanical fit for projectiles, in consequence of the liability to injure the bore by the friction of one hard metal upon another ; ^ but, as the conjecture remained unsub- stantiated in consequence of no sufficient trial having taken place, the apprehension was admitted to be 'technical'^ and the Committee of the House of Commons, in 1863, has reported that ' no sufficient experiments have been tried to show whether it be correct.'^ A similar fear was intimated, that the hard metal projectile might 'jam' in issuing from the rifling, but this was also inferential, and merely referable to the fact that a gun brought to this country from ' Evidence of Sir "William Wiseman, Bart. E.N., Committee of tlie House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, pp. 280, 281. ' Ibid. See Evidence of - Sir WiLLLiM: Abmsteono, 3165, 3925, Jirports of the Committee, p. viii. ' Md. 3925, 3928, 3932. ' Report, &c. p. Tiii. Chap. r.J SIE HOWAED DOUGLAS. 213 Sardinia, by Cavalli, had burst in consequence of an iron projectile becoming wedged in the iron bore.' ' Towards the ordnance of Sir William Armstrong the gTowth of public favour was less assuring. Al- though the proportion of mischances was not, perhaps, greater than in the case of other pieces, they appeared to be greater from the largeness of the number of guns manufactured, and disappointment in any particular was felt in the ratio of exaggerated expectation. Dis- trust was engendered as to the material of which they were made, and although Sir William Armstrong has stated that out of three thousand guns, made on his system of welded coil, not one has ever burst explosively, nor failed except by a gradual process,^ the feeling grew that it was not possible by welding to unite the forces of each coil so intimately as to withstand the rending force of the explosion, especially as the tendency of the longitudinal strain during discharge was to draw the coils asunder. In addition to this, the ' chase,' or forepart of the gun in front of the trunnions, was not thought sufficiently strong to withstand the external blow of a solid shot. Sir Howard Douglas, looking to the delicate instru- ments and adjustments for laying, the Armstrong gun with the degree of accuracy becoming its capabilities, and no doubt essential on land, came to the conclusion that these were utterly inapplicable " on board a ship, ' Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, Evidence of Capt. Hewlett, R.N. 3312, 3313, 3337. ' Evidence of the House of CommwnS Committee, 1863, 2974, 3163, M. p.viL 214 BBEECH-LOAOma. [Part U. always disturbed more or less by uneasy motion ; in correction of which the seaman's well-practised eye, and the rude habit of ' watching the roll,' would still have to be adhered to in actions, at whatever distance.' Breech-loadvng was the fundamental feature of the Armstrong gun, inasmuch as his system of rifling the pro- jectile is dependent on it; but breech-loading, which had so delighted the country by its novelty in 1858, declined in public confidence before two years elapsed, and 'the Grovernment,' as was said by one of its advisers on the occasion, 'having deliberately adopted the Armstrong system, Tnust tah& the consequences of iV^ In the Armstrong, system the defects imputed had reference principally to the arrangement of using a separate piece of metal as a vent-piece, to be taken out every time the gun was fired, and replaced every time it wa« loaded, with all its inconveniences of weight, heat, and possible disruptions. Besides, such a device was pro- nounced to be unmechanical, inasmuch as it rendered that part of the cannon the weakest, which on every account ought to be the most solid and the strongest. Even supposing this objection, on scientific grounds, to be overruled, it was pointed out by more than one ex- perienced observer, that men in the excitement of action with the enemy could never be expected to handle this unfamiliar instrument with such deliberate precision as to restore it in every instance to its proper ' Naval Gunnery. Part III. chap. v. p. 235. " Evidence of Colonel Lefeoy, Select Committee of the Home of Commons on Ordnance, 1862, 289. Chap. F.] NEW TRIALS. 216 position, whilst the slightest irregularity involved the risk of destruction. Even scientific gunmakers, who, like Mr. Westley Eichards, advocated the principle of load- ing at the breech, were forced to record their opinion that there were defects in this arrangement peculiar to the Armstrong gun, which had given rise to accidents calculated to discredit the whole system.' But although mishaps with vent-pieces were made known from time to time, Sir William Armstrong demon- strated that the frequency of such occurrences was greatly exaggerated,^ and that in no one instance had they been accompanied by loss of life, although it was no doubt true that wounds had been more than once inflicted.^ In a discussion on National Defences at the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1861, he stated that ' in order to avoid the necessity of lifting the vent-piece, which in large guns became inconveniently heavy, he had long been endeavouring to make it slide out side- ways. The first large gun he had made was con- structed in this manner ; but the objections which had presented themselves to that arrangement were, first, that the escape of gaa at the breech, which in the vertical arrangement was of no importance, be- came a serious inconvenience when it took place from the side ; and secondly, that in the event of the gun being fired before the vent-piece was screwed up, the mischief would be much more serious than if the ' Loading at the Breech, &c. by Westlet Eichaeds, p. 13. 2 Sir William Abmstkon&'s Letter to the Times, Nov. 27, 1861. " See also Evidence before the Committee on Ordnance, 1863, 3266. 216 SHUNT GUN. [Part n. opening were at the top. He did not, at that time, see how these difficulties could be surmounted, but be had since arrived at a construction, by which the object could be accomplished, without the liabilities described.' It is to be feared, however, that this new construction was not altogether successful, as accidents with vent- pieces continued to occur, and these chiefly with the larger guns ; a result which eventually led Sir William Armstrong to the invention of the "shunt' gun,^ in which breech-loading is altogether dispensed with. But this gun, as stated in the Eeport of the recent Committee of the House of Commons, is still only ' experimental,' and has not yet been taken into the service. Naval officers began to manifest uneasiness at these untoward mischances,' and accounts from distant stations represented the increasing dislike of the men to handle weapons so dangerous and so capricious. In active service by land also, serious inconvenience was at first experienced from the 'stripping' of the projectiles, the lead coating of which, in some instances, became detached as it left the gun, and inflicted injuries on those within reach ; but this liability was afterwards cor- rected, by the adoption of a process suggested by Mr . Bashley Britton, for ensuring its more intimate cohesion with the iron body of the projectile. ' Frocecdings of the Inst, of Civil Engineers, 1861, Discussion on National Defences, p. 94. 2 See Part III. chap. iv. pp. 306, 308. ' See Letter o/ Admiral Halsted to the Times, Oct. 15, 1861. Evi- dence o/ Admiral Syenei Dacres, Ordnance Committee, 1863, 3182, &c. Chap. F.] MUIiMUES. 217 Murmurs, complaints, and alarms grew so frequent on these and other points, that at length, towards the close of 1861, the publications devoted exclusively to mechanical art urged strongly the imminent necessity of investigation. The subject, thus indorsed by scientific authority, was taken up by the press, and the ' Times,' accepting the fact of the existence of these apprehen- sions, recommended enquiry without hesitation or delay. ' By boldly grappling with the cause we gain one of two advantages; if the Armstrong gun be found really efficient in spite of all said against it, we shall recover our confidence ; and should it be found untrustworthy, we can at once look about for a substitute.' ' The alle- gations alluded to imputed to the Armstrong gun the inability to bear rapid firing; that however effective when discharged only at intervals and carefully handled, in actual warfare, the metal would become heated, the delicate screws would no longer fit, and the piece would become disabled. Besides this, it was added 'graver defects are now said to have been discovered : muzzles as well as vent-pieces have been blown away, and the gun is, in fact, alarmingly liable to fracture.'^ For these and other questions ' we require a fair and fear- > The Times,Vct. 9, 1861. ' ' WMle almost every witness las 1)01:116 testimony to the superior accuracy and range of the Armstrong guns, great douhts have been ex- pressed as to whether they are not too delicate a weapon, and too liable to get out of order to be entirely relied upon in actual warfare. It must be remarked, however, that the officers who commanded Armstrong bat- teries in the late operations in China, found no difficulty in keeping them in order in all weathers and under all circumstances.' Report, p.vii., Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863. 218 81B G. a LEWIS. [FartlL less examination, conducted without prepossession or bias.' But a short period elapsed before the same authority was in a condition to state that the Secretary of State for War, Sir Greorge Cornewall Lewis, had suspended for the present the issue of 100-pounder Armstrong guns, and had ordered such experiments to be made as would bring the efficiency of the new ordnance to decisive proof.' In the meantime, public attention was attracted to the relatire performance of the Armstrong and Whitworth guns respectively, in an entirely new field, the operations in which it is necessary now to describe. ' The Times, Oct. 25, ] 861. PAKT III. THE lEON NAVY. 221 CHAPTER I. THE NATION RESOLTE TO CONSTKTTCT A NATT OF IRON. WHILST the astonishment of England was excited by the startling discoveries made in relation to rifled muskets and field artillery, public attention had scarcely yet been drawn in another direction, in which these surprising inventions were destined to exert a para- mount influence over the future interests of the United Kingdom. The question had not yet been popularly mooted as to the effect of these apparently invincible weapons on the fleets, and their consequent influence on the maritime supremacy of Grreat Britain. The Admiralty, and those professionally conversant with warfare by sea, were of course instinctively alive to the revolution in naval construction, which had become imminent, when they saw ready for action guns that crushed granite into powder, and before whose irresistible bolts oak had become absolutely feeble and defenceless. But as yet, the nation, startled and fascinated by what was passing on land, had scarcely cast a glance towards what was impending at sea. Alarm for the ' wooden walls ' was, however, fully aroused by a highly interesting communication, in which 222 SHELL. [Part III. Sir William Gr. Armstrong ' for the first time gratified public curiosity by a description of his own gun, and of the surprising force of his projectile, which was so formed as to be capable of being used as a shell as well as a shot, or even as both, inasmuch as it would pe- netrate as a shot before bursting as a shell. In the latter capacity, 51b. projectiles had been fired at 1,500 yards, against two targets, each 3 ft. thick, of rock elin, so placed, with an interval of 30 ft. between, that the one in front should exhibit the perforation made by the missile on entering, and the second the effects of the explosion within. The shells after passing through the first target, travelled four or five feet, and then exploded, scattering their splinters and hurling their pieces in every direction, and partially imbedding them in the timbers behind. ' If, therefore,' says Sir William, ' these were fired against a ship, they would first penetrate the side in their entirety, and then bursting, traverse the deck in fragments. Even these light 5-pounders, sending their shells from great distances through the sides of a ship and sweeping the decks with lumps of iron and lead, would produce destructive effects ; — and a small swift steamer carrying a few such guns, might prove a very troublesome opponent to a large ship of war. But if the dimensions of the cannon were increased so as to adapt it for shells of twenty or thirty pounds, ' Sir W. G. Aemstkong's Letter to the Times, January 1, 1857. At Portsmouth, towards the end of this year, Mr. Whitwoeth, in presence of some of the naval authorities, demonstrated the practicability of penetrating ships below the water mark by hollow shells of his con- struction. See post, p. 251. Chap. /.] 8EBAST0P0L. 223 still more terrible injury would be inflicted at great distances ; and the ponderous artillery now used at sea would be of little service where opposed to the accurate and long-range firing of such rifled shell guns.' It is curious to note the vast and rapid change which ,has taken place in our conception of naval warfare since this letter of Sir William Armstrong's was written. The bare idea of a shell of ' twenty or thvrty pounds ' was then sufficient to inflame imagination by the dread of the ' terrible injury ' it might inflict ; — now shells of five times that weight have been fired with astound- ing effect, and these ere long may be superseded by others of still greater dimension. The 'ponderous artillery' of which Sir William spoke in 1857, has been superseded, not, as he then anticipated, by light shell guns, but by 100, 200, and even 300-pounders, and these in turn may give place to others of still larger calibre. But at the moment when it was made, his announcement so threatening and so incontestable had its natural efi'ect upon jiublic apprehension. There was still a vivid recollection of recent scenes of the Crimean war, when the navy of Turkey was de- stroyed at Sinope, by the Eussian fleet firing Paixhans' explosive shot ; and when, somewhat later, in the naval attack on Sebastopol, a British man-of-war, having re- ceived several shells thrown from the batteries, was set on fire and compelled to withdraw, not without some disorganisation of the crew.' ' ' One of our finest ships of the line having received three shells, by which eighteen men were kUled between decks, was abandoned by 224 WOODEN SHELL. [Fart III The disclosure of the powers of Sir W. Armstrong's gun cannot, however, be said to have taken the naval authorities of England by surprise. Observant and thoughtful seamen had previously been calculating the probable effects of rifled ordnance upon wooden ships of war. Even at the time when the risk was almost confined to shells plunging from the old mortars, alighting vertically on the upper deck,i and crashing downwards, perhaps even through the bottom, pro- fessional men were accustomed to say that a single shell well-directed might prove a ship's destruction.^ But a far ruder shock had been given to the confidence traditionally reposed in British oak, when the sense of danger was aggravated by the dread of shell fired hori- zontally from heavy artillery ; wooden ships then came to be regarded as little better than heaps of firewood ; and the ablest officers conceived a wholesome appre- liension of placing combustible fleets within the range of explosive shot. Such men were duly familiar with the formidable her crew, who left through the ports, and took refuge in a steam-ship alongside ; nor eonld they be prevailed on to return to their guns.' The Fleet of the Future, &c. By J. Scott Eussell, Esq., pp. 12-57. ■ In Dr. Eobison's Mechanical Philosophy, which remains a text- book, the great use of shells is described as destroying buildings, bnah- ing through the roof s of magazines, &c., vol. i. p. 176. 2 'Hone shell take effect, and be pitched into the place best suited for it, the results must be dreadful.' Edinh. Review, vol. xcvi. p. 516. M. Paixhans, in commenting on the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, in a letter published in the Moniteur, Pebruary, 1854, says: ' The English Admiral P. recently said to M. B. that if two vessels armed with these shell-guns were to fight, it might happen that in a few instants one would disappear in the air, and the other under water.' Oiap.LI THE ' MEBBIMAC 225 nature of the missiles actually in use in the British navy. They knew the deadly capabilities of concus- sion shells, which, instead of an external fuse, had a mechanism within that released a striker on the instant of impact, spreading havoc like the springing of a mine. More dangerous than even these was the hollow shot filled with molten iron, the intense heat of which causes it to fall to pieces within a moment after penetrating a ship's side, when its fiery contents are dis- charged, burning and destroying as they flow amongst the. timbers. Others contain a composition the combustion of which is so fierce, that they continue to blaze even after immersion under water. A rude shock having thus been given to tie confidence traditionally reposed in ' heart of oak,' it is no matter for surprise that men aware of the formidable nature of such engines of death and destruction, whilst maintaining an heroic defiance of shot, should still fervently repeat the ejaculation of a brave naval ofiieer, 'For God's sake keep out the shells]'' The justification of this alarm has since been mani- fested in the course of the present war in the United States, by the encounter between the iron-clad ' Merri- mac' and the wooden ship 'Congress.' The first shell that burst within the latter killed every man at the nearest gun ; another and another burst amongst the crew, and ' the ship was soon a slaughter-house. Operations were now out of the question. The wounded were in crowds, horribly cut up. The ship, too, was on fire. The shells ' See The Quarterly Review, vol. eyiii. p. 557. Q 226 WOOD SUFEESESED. [Part UI. had kindled her wood-work in various places. Nearly all the guns were dismounted; the bulkheads blowa to pieces ; rammers and handspikes shivered, and the powder boys all killed. The inside of the ship looked like the interior of a burned and sacked house. Every- thing was in fragments — black or red, burnt or bloody. The horrible scene lasted about an hour and a half ; and then she struck. The ship was already on fire, and it burned and blew up during the night.' Such is the published account by an eye-witness of the hideous catas- trophe, which, in its combination of details, exhibits a realised epitome of all that had previously excited the apprehension of naval officers in England. These and other minor incidents deeply implanted the conviction that wood, as the sole material for vessels of war,' was no longer to be relied on. Whatever diffi- culties might be opposed to the adoption of iron in its stead — however grave the objection to its weight and immobility, it was, at all events, exempt from the fright- ful liability to combustion, which caused wood to be shunned, and cast a doubt over the safety of its retention even when protected externally by plates of metal. So soon, therefore, as it came to be known that oak, however ponderous and powerfully framed, was no longer able ' Sir Ho-WAEB Douglas, even in the last edition of his work on naTal gunnery, prepared shortly before his death, adhered to his original distrust of iron as a material for ships of war; but it is scarcely correct to say that he gave a deliberate preference to wood under all con- tingencies. In the ultimate power of iron to resist the penetration of shot he had no faith; but it is cleai- that he did not balance against this probability the certainty of the combustion of wooden ships by shell. CUp. I] 8IN0FE. 227 to resist the entrance of shell from the long range of rifled ordnance, as well as from the shorter one of the smooth bore, attention was earnestly turned to seek for protection against this new and formidable assailant, and iron at once suggested itself as the only effectual means of defence. The idea of coating ships with armour was not, how- ever, new. Nearly forty years before, Greneral Paixhans (the inventor of the explosive shot which caused such havoc at Sinope), when his canon-ohusier was adopted into the French service, in 1824, had anticipated Sir William Gr. Armstrong in the conviction that small craft equipped with artillery which discharged explosive and solid shot alike, would, under many circumstances, prove formidable antagonists to the old ships of the line, whose ponderous dimensions presented a mark, which it was next to impossible to miss. Greneral Paixhans was so satisfied that one of his own shot, exploding on mere impact, would prove as destructive to timber as the springing of a mine, that he recommended to the Minister of Marine the expediency of casing ships of war with iron, sufficiently strong to protect them. But, at that time, the increased weight was supposed to be an insuperable obstacle to the use of armour-plating, and the suggestion was rejected by the naval authorities in France. Twenty years later the plan was taken up (in 1845) by the American Grovernment, but abandoned on the ground that although iron, five inches thick, was be- lieved to be absolutely impenetrable by the heaviest Oct. 11, 1862. 298 FURTHER TRIALS. [Part III. occasion on the model of the ' Warrior,' but in some particulars stronger. The front was composed of three armour-plates, ranged edge to edge, the upper one being four and a half and the centre and lowest one rather more than five inches thick, with teak backing, and a skin of f ths of an inch of iron. The weight of the shell was increased from 131 lbs. to 151 lbs.,' the bursting contents from 3 lbs. 8 oz. to 5 lbs. of powder, and the charge with which it was iired from 25 lbs. to 27 lbs. Mr. Whitworth had wished the gun to be placed at a range of 1,000 yards, but a gentleman whose house was contiguous objected to such dangerous proximity, and a position was obliged to be taken at 800 yards from the target. The interest of the occasion attracted a more than ordinary number of scientific and professional spec- tators, the Lords of the Admiralty, chiefs of the War Department, and members of the Institution of Civil Engineers. The morning was one of unusual bright- ness and beauty, and the clearness of the air rendered every minute object distinct over the expanse of the dreary marsh where the concourse were assembled. Eanged along its southern extremity, and immediately behind the great enibankment that restrains the Thames, stood rows of ponderous targets which showed the evidences of former assaults; in front was the newly constructed one which was to concentrate the ' In the projectiles used on this occasion, Mr. "Whitwobth for the iirst time so far modified the form of the flat front as to give the centre a slight elevation above the smrounding edges. The effect upon the pene- trating or 'punching' power was not obvious to the spectators. Chap-IV.] NAVEZ APPARATUS. 299 interest of the day, and right and left of it were the ' splinter-proofs, ' rude iron sheds designed to shelter spectators from the iron shower of metal fragments which fall when cast-iron projectiles are dashed to pieces in these tremendous encounters. When the bugle had sounded in succession the note of warning and the signal to ' fire,' and before the thunder of the gun could reach the ear, the eye was apprised by the sheet of white flame that played over the face of the target, that the armour had been struck. Smoke issued from every crevice, and so soon as the suffocating vapour within permitted the interior to be examined, it was discovered that the shell, which struck with a velocity of 1,220 feet per second, after traversing the range of 800 yards,' had penetrated both the iron and the ' The high velocity of the Whitworth projectiles no doubt contri- buted greatly to their success. Even at 800 yards it was 1,220 ft. per second; that of the Armstrong 110-pounder iired with 14 lbs. of powder is only 1,210 ft. at the mouth of the gun. The velocity of pro- jectiles is ascertained very accurately by means of the electrical appa- ratus of Navez. Two frames are set up at a given distance, say 30 ft., from each other ; each frame is traversed in a zig-zag direction by a copper wire properly insulated and connected with the electrical appa- ratus. Suppose a projectile fired, it passes through the wire web of the first frame, breaking a wire and contact, and the instant of fracture is recorded at the instrument; the projectile goes on, traverses 30 ft., and then meets and breaks through the second frame and its insu- lated wire ; the exact instant of the second fracture being in like manner recorded. The time, the small fractional part of a second, elapsing between the first fracture and the second is ascertained by measuring the arc through which a pendulum had vibrated in the interval. To illustrate this more familiarly, suppose the pendulum to vibrate through a graduated arc of say ten inches in a second, and to carry with it loose upon its axis two pointer needles ; No. 1 connected with the in- sulated wire of frame No. 1 ; No. 2 needle connected with the wire of frame No. 2. When the pendulum is beginning to descend, the 300 DESTRUCTION DONE. {Fart III teakj and bursting in the substance of the latter, .had rent the timber into filaments, flinging frag- ments of broken shell round the chamber within. The plate through which it had entered exhibited minute cracks in various directions, the iron lining was distorted and torn, bolts were started, and one of the massive iron ribs sustaining the armour was snapped asunder. As portions of the broken shell had been thrown back- wards and fallen outside in front of the target, whilst the others were driven forward and scattered within it, it was obvious that again the shell had burst a fraction of a second too soon, and before it had reached what was meant to represent the main deck of the ship. The damage was therefore less than was due from so terrific an explosion, and the gun was again pointed for a second discharge. Again a shell of the same description was fired, and again it was driven through the top plate of four and a half inches of solid iron, traversing the timber in its resistless course, and this time bursting as was intended in the interior of the target, where it left lumps of operator causeg the gun to be fired by electric apparatus also under his control. The projectile is shot forth almost before his lips have ceased to say fire ! it passes through the first frame, breaking the •wire and the electric contact, and causing the needle-pointer No. 1 to be arrested at the exact spot on the graduated arc at which the pendu- lum had arrived at the instant of fracture ; after traversing 30 ft. the projectile breaks the wire of frame No. 2, and then the needle-pointer No. 2 is propped by the pendulum; marking the other extremity of the arc through which the pendulum had swung while the projectile traversed 3 ft. The length of the arc through which it had vibrated being thus ascertained, an easy calcidation assigns the velocity required. Ckap.IV,} THE TIMES. 301 metal of various sizes, hot and blackened with the recent explosion, deeply impacted in the beams and wood-work ; whilst the floor was strewn with bolt-heads and rivets wrung from their fastenings by the violence of the shock. To an unexperienced eye the evidences of destruc- tion caused by these and subsequent shots were appalling ; but individuals more familiar with such scenes gave expression to their disappointment that the shells had burst prematurely, and that the pieces into which they were rent were not sufiiciently nu- merous and minute, so that the lateral action was less deadly than had been expected. In the judgment of the naval and military authorities, further experience was held to be essential, for a nicer adaptation of the bursting charge within, not only to delay the explosion till the moment of perfect penetration, but to rend the tough metal in which the powder is enveloped into more multiplied and destructive splinters. On the same day shells weighing 80 lbs., with a bursting charge of 3 lbs. 12 oz., were fired at the same target from the Whitworth 70-pounder : they passed through the iron, but burst in the timber backing without piercing the inner skin or penetrating to the interior. To the latter experiment unusual interest was attached, as the weight of the Whitworth 70- pounder (being under 4 tons) renders it eminently suitable for service at sea. ' To estimate the importance of this portion of the proceedings,' says the writer in The Times of the following morning, 'it must be 302 THE TIMES. [Part lU. remembered that other guns, both smooth-bored and rifled, had fired nearly as much as 900 cwt. of shot in single discharges at 200 yards against similar plates without doing more than bending, or at most cracking, but never penetrating them. Yet here was a 70- pounder at 600 yards sending its shell clean through. While we state this, however, we must also, in justice to Sir William Armstrong, add, that when he fired his 153 lb. spherical shot against the 'Warrior' target some months before, though he did not penetrate the plates, he inflicted a much more damaging effect by shattering them, than Mr. Whitworth did with his 1501b. shell. Sir William, however, used 50 lbs. of powder at 300 yards range, and Mr. Whitworth only 27 lbs. at 800 yards The result of the day's experiments is a great triumph both for the form and material of Mr. Whitworth's projectile ; but to fully utilise the enormous penetrating power of his gun, a still greater explosive force, whether by gunpowder or some other means, must be given to the contents of his shell. It is not a clean and easily plugged, hole that is wanted in the side of an iron frigate, but a crushing smash that makes a hundred radiating leaks which nothing can stop or stanch. Mr. Whitworth has overcome the first and most formidable of all difficulties hy making the hole ; it only remains now to give his shell bursting power sufficient to convert the round hole into a labyrinth of ragged rents : and he has persevered too long to be likely now to stop short at an obstacle like this.' ' ' The Times, Nov. 14, 1862. Chap, ir.1 FLAT-FEONTEB SHOT. 303 On November 14, the 110-pounder of Sir William Armstrong was fired against the uninjured parts of the same target which Mr. "Whitworth had riddled the day before. The shot was a conical one of 110 lbs. cut short at the base, so as to reduce it to the weight of 68 lbs. This was fired at a range of 200 yards, and with a charge of 12 to 16 lbs. of powder. But in no case did it penetrate the plate or make any indentation exceeding 4 inches in depth, the cone being broken off, and the main body of the metal behind it crushed to pieces. The proceedings of that day closed by trying the Whitworth 12-pounder with flat-fronted shot and shells of homogeneous iron, against a target covered with 2^ inches of iron, and inclined backward to an angle of 45°, an angle at which no gun but Mr. Whitworth's has yet succeeded in sending any projectile through the plate. Two shot made of cast-iron, and only in- tended to be used as pioneers to ascertain the range, were fired by accident instead of those of hardened steel, and the error was at once detected by their crumbling to pieces. But those designed for the occasion evinced their usual power, completely penetrating the iron in a diagonal line where the inclination increased the thick- ness to about three inches and a half. The shells, which were used without bursting charges, were found to be so little injured by passing through the iron, that they might each have been fired again from the same gun. With this remarkable scene closed the latest act of 304 m01 Times, April 29, 1863. X 2 308 ABMSTBONG eOO-POUNDEB. [Part HI. bore, like the Armstrong 300-pounder at a range of 200 yards ; or to defend it against the assault of the Whit- worth rifled gun from still greater distances. Since the foregoing passage was in type, a 'Warrior' target, fourteen feet square, placed on board a floating raft, at a distance of 1,020 yards, has been tried at Shoeburyness in December 1863. From a 13'3 inch Armstrong shunt gun weighing 22^ tons ; both solid projectiles and shell, weighing 600 lbs., were fired with a charge of 70 lbs. of powder, at an elevation of 2'25, and driven clean through, making a hole in the iron- plate two feet long by twenty inches wide. ' The teak backing,' says a writer in The Engineer of December 18, ' was rent into fragments, from the merest splinter to the size of a cocoa-nut ; and f -inch plates of iron were torn asunder like paper.' 309 CONCLUSION. THE PRESENT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION. IN any retrospect of these occurrences, -with a view to trace their influence upon the present state of the subject, a distinction must necessarily be drawn between the act of the War Office in 1858, in selecting the Armstrong gun for special service in the field, and the subsequent policy, which, by stifling competition and hurrying the introduction (in some instances without previous trial) of the heavy ordnance (which General Peel had wisely left for future consideration), has had the effect of committing the Government somewhat hurriedly to the Armstrong system in its utmost extent. Whatever may have been the alleged insufficiency of the first trials of the rival guns by the Committee of 1858, the Committee of the House of Commons in 1863 have pronounced the formal adoption of the Armstrong field-gun by General Peel to have been fully justified by the circumstances under which the result of those trials was brought officially before him.' It is not of the isolated fact of that resolution that ' Seport, p. iv. See the opinion of the present Secretary of State for War, to the same eflfect. Ibid. Evidence, 6043. 310 COLONEL LEFBOY. [Part III even those who contest the propriety of the choice have reason to complain ; but of the arrangements that followed, which, assuming that the previous decision may have been questionable, opposed a serious obstacle to its reconsideration. Governments and committees with the utmost purity of intention are not exempt, any more than men and individuals, from liability to occasional error; and true wisdom is manifested on such occasions not in the persistent assertion of an unattainable infallibility, but in a cordial readiness to admit the teachings of advanced knowledge and adopt the corrections recommended by experience. It is to be regretted that this spirit has not been more prominent in the course followed by the military authorities. The permanent attachment of Sir William Armstrong to the government service, and the plurality of employments created for him, jus- tified the statement of Colonel Lefroy, that the War department having possessed themselves of his system, ' was bound to work it out.' ' And even when the sufficiency of the Armstrong plan of breech-loading was questioned, the only admission called forth was the declaration of the same authority, that 'the Grovern- ment, having deliberately adopted it, must take the consequences.'' ^ A misconception as to the wishes and wants of the public is apparent in a policy such as this ; the Government ought not to feel itself help- ' Evidence of the Howe of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1862, 355. 2 Ibid. 289. Concl] EXPENDITUBE. 3U lessly ' bound to work out ' any system in despite of a reasonable prospect of exchanging it for a better ; or ' to take the consequences ' of any act, provided they can be averted by timely precaution. So far from ascribing this absolute finality to depart- mental decisions, if questionable they ought to be upheld only till opportunity offers for superseding them by more advantageous arrangements ; and any measures calculated to thwart or defer such a salutary change, must be more or less inconsistent with the true interests of the nation. There is no one of the great military Powers of Europe whose entire freedom of action in the choice and introduction of artillery is embarrassed by arrangements at all analogous to those which recently existed in England. And although by Sir William Armstrong's retirement from his several offices, he has relieved the Crown of its obligations so far as they were affected by his official relation, one formidable obstacle still remains in the fact of the vast amount of capital expended upon guns and ammunition peculiar to his invention.' This outlay operates practically as a bond, by which, under a penalty of two millions and a half sterling, the country is deterred from attempting any change. ' ' I must confess,' said Captain A. "W. Jeeningham, E.N., an officer of the most extensive experience, ' that when I used to go to Woolwich .and see the hundreds of 100-pounder Armstrong guns lying about, manufacturing and being issued, it used to strike me that we were going on too fast in laying out so much money on these big guns before their perfection was complete.' — Evidence, House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, 3661, 3749. 312 ME. ANJDEBSON. [Part III. But it is not aloae the magnitude of the sum that will cause the country to reflect ; it is the farther considera- tion that the whole of this immense expenditure, and of the vast operations extending over a period of five years, between 1858 and 1864, have been carried on exclu- sively 'for maturing and perfecting the Armstrong system of rifled ordnance,' ' which by an unanimous concurrence of opinion, including that of the author himself, is not yet 'matured ; ' and so far from being ' perfect,' the present superintendent of the Eoyal Gun Factory declares that he ' does not think very much^ now of the Armstrong gun chosen by the committee of 1858 in preference to the Whitworth ; and although the guns made for the Government since are much better than those of 1859 and 1861, 'he thinks the guns of last year are very bad in many particulars.'^ This is the evidence of a gentleman whose professional reputation stands so high in the estimation of one of the naval captains examined (himself a rival inventor), that he calls him ' the ablest mechanic in the world without exception,' ^ and Mr. Anderson's authority in this in- stance rests upon the fact, that in his confidential relation to the Government he has been conversant with the making of the Armstrong gun from the commence- ment. His language is even more portentous than the expressions above quoted, for in reply to a farther • See Definition of Sir William Armstrong's Duties, and Terms of his Appointment by the War Office, Feb. 23, 1859. . ' Evidence of Mr. Anderson, House of Commons' Committee, 1863, 765. ' Evidence of Ca.yiaia Scott, E.N., 4387. Concl.] DUKE OF SOMEBSET. 313 enquiry, he recommends the Government to begin entirely c?6 wow, and, 'whatever the 'past may have been, to throw it behind us, taJdng advantage of the ex-penence now gained, and let bygones he bygones with respect to the manufacture of ordinance.^ ' This counsel, after an expenditure of upwards of two millions and half sterling, is by no means conso- latory; especially when coupled with a still later as- surance from the same authority .(second only to that of Sir William Armstrong himself), that ' within a few years we shall be very much dissatisfied with what we are even now doing.' ^ It must not be overlooked that whilst this is the dubious condition of the Armstrong gun, the system of rifling tendered by Mr. Whitworth so many years ago remains to the present time unaltered in any particular ; nor has the confidence of its inventor undergone any diminution, either as to the power or precision of his own gun. It awaits its trial now, in precisely the same condition as that in which it was offered in 1858 ; and its author has uniformly declared his inability to im- prove it.' During all this long period, says the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, ' the whole process has been an experiment, and I consider that the War Office and the Admiralty have been experimental de- partments. We have been experimenting largely ; but ■ Evidence of Captain Scott, E.N., 753. ' Ibid. 765. * Letter of Mr. "Whitwoeth to The Times, Feb. 28, 1860. 314 CAPTAIN BLAKELY. [Part III it cannot be helped.' • Protracted experiments were no doubt unavoidable, and the outlay already incurred has been cheerfully borne by the country ■ under the belief, not that 2,539,547Z. I7s. 8d. was to be devoted exclusively to reproduce and improve the gun of one single inventor; but that, in the course of its disburse- ment, every opportunity would have been eagerlyavailed of to compare and determine the value of other com- petitive systems of rifling. Other inventors suifer under the disadvantage of defraying the cost of their experiments from their own private resources, whilst those of Sir William Arm- strong have been carried on at the public charge ; but it is not of that they complain so much as of their ex- clusion from the contest, and of the official difiEiculties which they allege have been interposed to obstruct comparative trials of their guns. Amongst others, Captain Blakely, whose gun has since attracted much attention in other countries as well as in England, says he applied in 1860 to have a rifle gun tried in competition with the Armstrong and Whitworth, con- forming in all respects to the programme of the War Office. He offered ' to conduct all the experiments at his own expense ; but the offer he says was refused, and though ' repeated several times since, it has always been refused.' There have been, however, many exceptions to this ' Evidence, ibid. 5222. ' Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Ordnance, 1863, 4744, 4766, 4029. Concl.] MB. WE8TLEY RICHAEBS. 315 practice ; trials were instituted, as before stated, in 1860, in the course of which six methods of rifling were examined with a vievv to the selection of the best for the purpose of utilising the old smooth-bore cast- iron guns which had been superseded by the introduc- tion of rifled ordnance:' — and in 1863 Mr. Westley Eichards was aiforded facilities for trying his plan of breech-loading in substitution of that of Sir William Armstrong: but these, and other instances, have not been sufficiently frequent to counteract the general discontent.^ Even as spectators of the experiments by the Ordnance Select Committee, it is not open to scientific men and civilians with sound practical knowledge of the subject to be present unless specially invited. Mr. Westley Eichards stated to the House of Commons' Committee that when he applied for permission to witness some trials of large guns on an occasion on which Sir William Armstrong's, Mr. Whitworth's, and Mr. Lynall Thomas's were to be fired, he was refused. He was ' told at the War Office that none but military and naval men could be allowed to be present.' ^ In the great struggle for ascendency between armour- clad ships and rifled ordnance, the difference is apparent between the feelings with which practical men regard the course pursued .by the Ordnance Select Committee to determine which is the gun possessed of the utmost force for assault: and that adopted by the Committee ' See ante, Part II. chap. i. p. 84. ^ See post, p. 335. » Evidence, #c., 1863, 3993. 316 mOlJ PLATE COMMITTEE. \_Fart III. on Iron Plate to discover the metal endowed with the highest power of resistance. As regards the latter body, which is composed partly of naval and military officers and partly of civilians eminent in various branches of science, not a murmur of discontent has reached the public; no producer of iron has complained of exclusion, and no ingenious constructor has imputed partiality. On the contrary, the proceedings of the Iron Plate Committee have, up to the present, been re- ceived with implicit confidence, as the deliberate acts of men eminently qualified by their skill in metallurgy, and their experience as engineers and workers in iron, to assist their naval and military colleagues in coming to just decisions. Hence, while the progress already made, and the important facts elicited, can- not fail to be conducive to an ultimate result of the utmost value in guiding the selection of the most suitable metal, and its use in the most available form for the construction of an iron navy, no equivalent results as regards the selection of the most powerful rifled gun have as yet accrued from the proceedings of the Ordnance Select Committee. It admits of little doubt that the main cause of this disappointment is to be traced to the constitution of the latter body, and to the want of certain essential qualifi- cations in its members. There is perhaps no single problem of modern times that embraces within itself the same multiplicity and variety of elements, drawn from the profoundest resources of numerous branches of physical science, as that which now occupies the ConeL] EMPEBOS OF RUSSIA. 317 attention of the Ordnance Select Committee of the War Office ; and yet, anomalous as it may seem, the list of that Committee, with possibly one exception, includes no name of the highest eminence amongst the cultivators of science in any department. Its members are taken exclusively from the army and navy, and whilst the fact of an officer being chosen for so impor- tant a duty is an honourable testimony of his personal and professional distinction, it admits of no question that service afloat or in the field, does not of itself impart the enlarged acquirements essential to decide the abstruser questions involved in the pending enquiry. Mere familiarity with the use of an ingenious instrument does not necessarily imply such a philosophical know- ledge of its form and proportions as would enable its possessor to weigh the theory of its mechanism or pronounce on the construction of its parts. To assume this is virtually to imply that the wearer of a watch, is thereby entitled to speak with authority on the complex and delicate movement of a chronometer; — andalthough the course of education laid down for the artillery in- cludes the study of mechanical engineering as connected with ordnance ; professional duty is so little favourable to its practical cultivation, that there are few in the service of whom it could be said, as has been told of the late Emperor of Eussia, that he could have assisted with his own hands in the making of every military weapon from a musket to a 42-pounder. It was apparently from a consciousness of this want of men of practical science among the advisers of the .318 CIVILIANS EXCLUDED. [Part lU. War Office, that during the campaigns in the Crimea the exclusively military character of the Ordnance Select Committee was so far relaxed as to admit of the introduction of two civil engineers, a mathematician, a professor of chemistry and a gentleman eminent in almost every branch of philosophical mechanics. But the alteration was not permanent ; and those who have devoted their attention to the improvement of rifled ordnance, whilst rejecting the idea of deliberate in- justice, have very generally expressed their regret at the failure of their attempts to obtain such practical trials of their invention, or such decisions in relation to them, as ought to inspire confidence in the com- petence as well as in the impartiality of their judges. JS'ot civilians alone, but naval and military officers ' whose professional experience enabled them with great effect to apply their minds to render artillery more effective, concur in complaints of what is designated as ' the system ' of the War Office, a term which, under the form of an abstraction, conceals the absence of individual responsibility. It is the function of the Ordnance Select Committee to advise the Secretary of State for War on all improvements suggested in the construction of artillery; and it is described as their ' See the evidence of Captain E. A. E. Scott, E.N., and of Captain A. Theophil-ds Blakely, before the Select Committee of the House of ComiKom on Ordnance, 1863. Captain Scott can only account for the difBculties which were opposed to the institution of trials of the guns of Mr. Bashxey Beitten and others, by the conjecture that there was a predetermination 'to make some plan of Sir William Armstrong succeed; and therefore that others who brought forward systems of rifling were delayed.' Ibid. 4252. Concl.] ' THE SYSTEM.' 319 practice to ' recommend either that the proposal should be discouraged if not worthy of acceptance, or that experiments should be carried out to test its value as an invention.'' But the grievance appears to be that, owing to the want of practical and eminently scientific men on the committee, it is in reality almost a matter of chance what proposals are entertained, what dismissed without trial, and what left entirely un- noticed.^ The Duke of Somerset reluctantly attests the existence of this distrust; and says that many of the inventors ' used to come to him at the Admiralty, because they said they did not like the Ordnance Com- mittee ' at the War OfSce.' And as an illustration of the difficulties, interposed by 'the system,' his Grace goes on to state that after witnessing the performance of the Whitworth gun, when it penetrated the armour plate of the ' Trusty,' and ' could have sunk her,' he says, ' with one or two shots,' * he felt desirous to have some of these guns manufactured, and obtained the con- currence of Lord Herbert, who was then Secretary of State for War ; but the Ordnance Select Committee not having tried or approved of Mr. Whitworth's mode of rifling, his attempt was defeated. Of late the active preparation of Armstrong guns has ' Evidence of Colonel Lepeot, Home of Commons' Select Committee o'/i Ordnance, 1862, 158, 166; and of General St. Geobgb, ibid. 2752, &c. - Ibid. Mr. Westlet Bichaeds ' does not think they (the Ordnance Select Committee) assist inventors as if they desired their inventions to succeed. Ibid. 4027, 4029. » Ibid. 5U5. * Evidence, Committee o/1863, 5184, &c. 320 VENT-PIECES. [Part Iff. been slackened at Woolwich, and ceased altogether at Elswick. No land service 12-pounders have been made for a long time, and the manufacture for tbe navy has been confined to 70 and 40-pounders.' Of about 3,000 pieces produced in all, 2,370 of various calibres have been issued for land and sea service. As regards the estimation in which it is held by the army, the opinion expressed by Colonel Gardner of the Eoyal Artillery, who holds the appointment of Chief Instructor in Gunnery at Shoebnryness, may be fairly assumed to represent the sentiments of the service in general. ' My general impression,' said Colonel Gardner, ' is this, that the gun is a very accurate gun ; I may say remarkably accurate : that with considerable care it would be a useful gun; but that I have considerable doubts at present whether it is so formed as to stand the rough usage of service. Its weak points in my opinion are the vent-piece and the breech-screw. The vent^piece is defective in strength, and the breech-screw is liable to injury, from the fact of the face of the breech- screw being indented by the vent-piece breaking. If the surfaces of the vent-piece and of the breech-screw are not true, you have a concavity made on the screw, and yon may go on breaking vent-pieces as often as you like. From what I have observed, I should be inclined to think that that would always be a great defect in that description of gun.' ^ ' Evidence of Major-G-eneral Tdlloh, Iloiise of Commons' Select Committee on Ordnance, 1863, 2681, &c. 2 Evidence of the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 1863, 8. CoTicL] DIFFICULTIES. 321 Colonel Gardner illustrated his conception of the care indispensable to insure the safe working of the Armstrong gun, by quoting from the formal 'in- structions ' a passage explanatory of the necessity of the surfaces of the breech-screw and the vent-piece being true, in order to insure close contact, and thus prevent the injurious consequence of permitting the gases of explosion to escape ; it was this : ' The allowance between the nose of the vent-piece and powder-chamber should be exactly j-^^-g-gths of an inch, or Yjig-^ths difference in diameter. If less than this is allowed, any burr or upsetting of the vent-piece nose will cause it to jam in the gun, and if a greater allow- ance is given, the edges of the cup will be split open and blown by the gas into the space, and the faces will be destroyed.' ' That,' continued Colonel Gardner, ' is where I think the failure will still arise, because nobody, or at least not one man in a hundred, when at all excited, would look, or, in fact, have the means of ascertaining that those dimensions are exactly true ; then, if this burr occurs, or if these fittings, when you come to thousandth parts of an inch, are not observed, you will probably have the result apprehended.' ' This statement had immediate reference to heavy guns, but ' the same results of breakage, which are the effects of using the breech-screw, will apply to the whole system ; but not, perhaps, in the same degree in > Evidence of the House of ComTUons' Committee on Ordnance, 20. T 322 COLONEL BINGHAM. [Part IIL the smaller guns, of course.' ^ In addition to this, he objected to the complication of the arrangements, and the use of detached pieces and delicate screws, which ' a handful of dust ' must at any moment clog and disable. Looking to these and other doubtful points, he ' would be glad to see the whole subject opened, as at present we are in a very unsatisfactory state.' ^ Colonel Bingham, Deputy Adjutant-General of Artillery, on the first introduction of the Armstrong gim into the service, and down to the autumn of 1862, ' had perfect confidence in it in every way,' ^ but owing to a series of mishaps which since occurred, that confidence was shaken. In illustration of this. Colonel Bingham mentioned one occasion at Shorncliffe, when in the course of ordinary practice, ' six of the guns became very much damaged, in fact unserviceable.' He also stated that owing to ' bad manufacture ' and the false economy of ' lining ' guns that showed signs of weakness while undergoing proof, ' he believed that more than half the guns we have now in the field are these faulty guns.'* Still he is perfectly satisfied with the smaller ■ Emdeiice of the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 23, 112. 2 md. 74, 106, 137. » ibid. 366. * Ibid., Evidence of Colonel Bingham, 384, &c. There is some ob- scurity about the explanations given with reference to the 'patching of these guns,' as w^ll as to the exteAt of the damage thereby occasioned. It seems that the authority to line the defective guns emanated from the Ordnance Select Committee. (^Und. 651.) The Committee of the House of Commons in their recent Report quote the following passage from the evidence of Mr. Anbeeson : ' If I had known that those linings would have been spoken of, or if Sir William Armstrong had known it, we should not have lined them; we would have bored them out. Concl] DUKE OF CAMBSIBGE. 323 field guns introduced in 1858, if properly manufactured ; no other country, in his opinion, is possessed of a better, and this, he thinks, is the opinion of artillery officers in general ; and as far as he has seen he would prefer it to the Whitworth.' Major-G-eneral Sir Richard Dacres, who commanded the British artillery at the siege of Sebastopol, states on the report of the officer commanding the Horse Artillery at Woolwich, that owing to the flaws, only ten out of sixty-six Armstrong guns were effective.^ And although he thinks it, notwithstanding ' a great many defects, the best rifled gun known ; still he would not consider it safe to rely on it entirely, in the field.' ' The Duke of Cambridge, as Commander-in-Chief, speaking on behalf of the land service, has given a similarly guarded opinion : — ' The Armstrong gun,' he says, ' is not perfect, but is the best gun so far as we have gone, and the most perfect system we have yet had laid before us.' Of the Whitworth gun His Eoyal Highness ' will not say whether it is a good gun or a bad one, because it is now under experiment, and it has They were to be made for 200Z. a piece, and they have been made at i% ; and now, working that price up to 100^., I have made them as good as any guns that were ever made.' ' He positively denies,' adds the Seport, ' that the lining complained of by Colonel Bingham was the cause of the failure of the guns. On careful investigation your Com- mittee find that out of 570 12-pounders issued and in use, 13 only have been returned to the royal gun factories for repair, 3 of which have proved unserviceable, and the remainder repairable at an inconsiderable expense.' (p. vii.) ' Evidence of the Souse of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, Evidence o/ Colonel Bingham, 374, 524, 634. ' Ibid., Evidence o/ General Sir Eichabd Daoees, 2,182. ' Ibid. 2,184-86, 2,193. T 2 324 INJUSY IN WAB. [Fart III. never been introduced as a system so completely as the Armstrong gun.' ' The majority of the above exceptions h%ve been taken, it will be seen, on the ground of its being a breech-loader. 'The preponderance of opinion,' as reported by the House of Commons' Committee of 1860, ' seems to be against any system of breech-loading for larger guns.' ^ But as regards field guns, the same Committee state 'that the ofiBcers who commanded Armstrong batteries in the late operations in China found no diflSculty in keeping them in order in all weathers and under all circumstances.' ^ This, how- ever, admits of some qualification, as ' there was no rough work in China ' to afford opportunity for a thorough trial.* And in the Chinese war,^ as well as in the more recent service in New Zealand and the Feejee Islands, the official reports of the performance of the gun do not agree in all particulars with the experience and evidence of individual officers.^ Whilst the opinion in the army is thus unsettled as ' Evidence of the Rome of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, Evidence 0/ Evidence of the Duke of Someeset, 5,139. 2 Evidence, #<;., 2,318. « md. 3,655; Z 2 340 ALABM IN THE NAVY. {Fart III. guns, says, ' althongla his own men and officers have the most perfect confidence in them, the general opinion of the navy is rather adverse ; they are frightened, from one or two accidents, and the feeling of the fleet now is rather against them.' ' This apprehension, if allowed to take root and spread, would in time be disastrous ; the intrepidity of a man in actual conflict is sustained, not merely hy the pos- session of the best possible weapon, but by the con- sciousness that it is the best ; and in proportion to the courage inspired by this belief would be the opposite feeling of discouragement and dismay if taught to think that the enemy had a better. The restoration of confidence can only be accom- plished by the early adoption of a policy difierent from that which has heretofore prevailed. The country must avail itself of the genius and discoveries of other inventors, by suspending the practical monopoly of one. Parliament must sustain the great officers at the head of the army and navy in instituting an entirely new . mode of investigation, such as that recommended by the late Committee of the House of Commons, under which ' without prejudice or partiality, the difierent systems, not of Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whit- worth only, but of Mr. Bashley Britten, Captain Blakely, Mr. W. Eichards, and other able men whose minds are now engaged on ordnance questions, may be fairly experimented upon.' ^ ' Evidence, ^c. 3,420. ' Sej>ort, ^c, p. viii. Concl.] EXFENDITTJBE. 341 To ensure reliance in the issue of such an enquiry, the same Committee intimate with sufficient clear- ness, that ' no trials can be altogether satisfactory to which, under proper restrictions, the scientific public are not admitted;' — but the change to be reassuring must go somewhat farther. It will not suffice to permit the presence of scientific men only as spectators ; they ought to be called in as umpires, and, at whatsoever sacrifice of conventional feeling, they must be associated and identified with the judgment of the new tribunal. One 'lion in way' the nation must be resolute to confront ; the expenditure already incurred must be regarded as a thing of the past. In the terse terms used by the present Superintendent of the Eoyal Factory at Woolwich, we must be content to ' let by- gones be bygones with respect to the manufacture of Ordnance.' ' And, after all, the experience gained, as Mr. Anderson reminds us, will be fraught with advan- tage when we come to take a fresh departure ; and the disappointments endured will serve as so many beacons to warn us off from the track of former failure. Nor will the previous outlay be altogether lost; the material, the machinery, and other appliances created at Woolwich, will be still available ; and the recent Committee of the House of Commons, whilst they are convinced that no reasonable expenditure for accomplishing this great object would be refused by Parliament, suggest that * the present interruption of the manufacture of Arm- strong guns at Woolwich affords a good opportunity for ' Evidence, Jtc, Mr. Andeeson, 753. 342 NEW TRIALS, [Part III. devoting the resources of that establishment to pro- moting renewed experiments.' ' One important step has already heen taken in this direction; shortly after the startling events at Shoe- buryness, at the close of 1862, when contrary to general expectation the armour-plate of the ' Warrior ' was not only pierced by Whitworth shot, but penetrated by Whitworth shell, Her Majesty's G-overnment came to the resolution to reopen the former settlement of 1858, so far as to authorise the institution of a series of trials to determine the relative excellence of the Armstrong and Whitworth systems. These comparative experiments are now about to commence. They will be conducted, not by the usual Ordnance Committee, composed ex- clusively of military and naval ofiScers, but by another specially named, with whom two scientific civilians have been associated, Mr. John Penn and Mr. Pole, the former distinguished in the highest walks of his profes- sion as a mechanical engineer. The programme of tests to which the guns are to be subjected will doubtless include every point essential to determine all questions of construction, velocity, range and precision ; rapidity of firing, powers of destruction, and length of endur- ance. The issue of this important contest will be watched by the public with profound and unwonted interest — but the result, to whichever side victory may incline, must not be permitted again to close the gates against the honourable ambition of other aspirants. Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth are but ' Report, ^c, p. yiii. Cond.] FINALITY. 343 two out of those clamouring for admission; others in due course of time will advance their pretensions, and whatever be the result of the approaching trial, whether it attest the superiority of the Armstrong gun, or point to its supersession by the Whitworth; no judgment, as between them, must preclude the just claims of other rivals to an equally dispassionate scrutiny. ' Finality,' it has been said by Sir William Armstrong, ' is a word that ought to be unknown to science ; ' but this, like other propositions equally sound in the general, admits freely of exceptions in the particular. In Sir William's own factories there must be workmen to-day using tools so simple, yet so fully adapted to special purposes, as to be almost identical with those in use by their progenitors ages ago. The disinterred utensils of extinct races, the implements discovered in the tumuli of Asia, and in the earth mounds of the Mississippi ; even the instruments found in the tombs of Etruria and Upper Egypt, as well as in the dwellings and workshops of Pompeii, exhibit combinations of mechanical parts as effective for their objects as those employed at the present time. There is no reason why similar excellence should not be attainable in ordnance ; nor why science should not be so successfully applied to the construction of large guns as to render them by a combination of strength and simplicity so nearly perfect as practically to require no farther improvement. But till that point shall have been attained, competition must remain open ; and whatever be the temporary inconveniences of ' Letter of Sir William AiJiSTEOxo to The Times, Nov. 27, 1861. 344 THE FUTVEE. change, the abiding interests of the country will henceforth require that the man who reaches the high eminence of giving his name to the arms under whose protection the nation reposes should hold it by no other tenure than that of uncontested superiority. INDEX. INDEX. ABEL, F. A., Chemical Director at Woolwich, 17, n. — on the tenacity of homogeneous iron, 178 Accuracy of firing in the Armstrong gnn, 199 — in the Whitworth gun, 199, 200 Admiralty begin to buUd iron-clad gun-boats, 229 — order armour-clad frigates in the Clyde and Thames, 230 Air space, guns burst by, 209, 255 Airey, Mr., the Astronomer Eoyal, opinion of Mr. "Whitworth's work, 24 'Alfred,'the, trials of the Whitworth's projectiles against, in 1857, 237 — flat-fronted projectile penetrates under water, 254 Algeria, French troops armed with rifle, 4, 73 — theiralarm for the Arab firearms, 74, n. American skill with rifle, 5, 18 — conical balls — 'pickets,' 18 — rifled artillery, 77, « ., 332 — method of cooling cast-iron blocks for guns, 88 Ammunition, waste of, by the old musket, 6, 7, 9 — by old field and siege guns, 9 Anderson, Mr., head of the Eoyal Factory at Woolwich, 27, 129 — opinion of, the Whitworth mode of measuring, 27, re. Anderson, Mr., his opinion of the Armstrong patents, 134, n. — appointed assistant to Sir W. Armstrong, 136 — his functions described, 137, «., 159 — condemns the early Armstrong guns, 148, 312 — thinks them still bad in many particulars, 148, «., 312 — thinks a better gun possible in 1860, 152 — his opinion of homogeneous iron, 179 — report on the Whitworth 80- pounder, 209 — evidence as to the gun made at Woolwich under Mr. Whitworth's directions, 285, re. — his Tiewofthe present state of the Armstrong gun, 313 Anglesea, Marquis, 18, 245 Angular butt, Jones's, 239, «. Arab firearms. See Algeria Armour-plate. See Iron-clad Ships Arms, imprOTcment in, since 1854, 3 Armstrong, Sir William George, 97 — his early passion for mechanical studies, 97 — his hydraulic inrentions, 98 — establishes the Elswick Works, 100 — produces the hydro-electric ma- chine, 100 — completes his first gun, 1855, 101 348 INDEX. AEM Armstrong, SirW. G.,his nyctoscope, 102, n. — first order from the Government for six guns, 102 — favourably reported on, 103 — 12-, 18-, and 32-pounders made, 103 — his claim to the invention of ■welded coil, 91, 105, n. — his segment shell, 114 — its originality contested, 115, n. — his system recommended by the Committee of 1868, 129 — adopted by the Government, 132 — assigns his patents to the Crown, 133 — substance of these patents, 134, «. — his past expenses reimbursed, 134 — offers his future services to the Crown as Director of Rifled Ord- nance, 135 — appointed Engineer to the War Department, 136 — appointed Superintendent of the Eoyal Gun Factory, 137 — retires from the Elswick Com- pany, 137 — his heavy ordnance taken into the naval service, 143 — effect of his appointments pre- judicial, 145, 310 — his system then and still incom- plete, 148 — his assistant, Mr. Anderson, thinks his guns bad in parts, 148, n. — his position discouraged other inventors, 149, 150, 152, 165, 161 — it gave him undue advantages over other rivals, 153 — General Peel questions this, 153, 168 — his appointment rendered the Go- vernment a partisan of his gun, 164 — Colonel Lefroy's opinion on this point, 154, 185 . — retires from the Government ser- vice, 144 — his objections to the Whitworth system, 184, 334 — . first doubts as to using the same gun for shot and shell, 189, n. AKM Armstrong, Sir W. G., questions the value of great range, 129, n., 197 — new trial of his gun assented to in 1860, 204 — causes of its not going on, 205, 206 — letter to The Times in 1867 on the danger to ships, 222, 223 — opinion in 1860 that no gun then known could punch iron plate, 241, 241, «., 271 — that no shell could penetrate it, 241, 271, n. — prefers steel to any other metal for guns, 269, 337 — conjecture as to one cause of heat in guns, 262, ?i. See Heat — his opinion that projectiles do not 'punch' iron plate, 267, 268 — comparative effects of bruising and penetrating iron-plate, 273, 273, «.,274 — his able defence of his own system in 1863, 333 — his latest view as to what con- stitutes his ' system,' 336, n. — has no gun 'in the service' equal to pierce armour-plate, 338 — ' new trial ordered of the Whit- worth and Armstrong guns, 342 Armstrong gun, 'grooving' of, 46 — described by Sir William Arm- strong in 1857, 222 — vis inertia of the projectile, 54, n. — it and the Whitworth the two principal competitors, 84 — first one made in 1855, 101 — labour in making it, 102 — his first idea of a gun, 106 — welded coil and its properties, 106 — breech-loading and its antiquitv, 107 — the compressible projectile ren- dered breech-loading essential, 108 — breech-loading the weak point of the gun, 110 — its form of rifling, 112 — the nature of the projectiles, 113 — the segment shell, its construc- tion, 114 INDEX. 349 ARM Armstrong gun, its excellence report- ed by the House of Commons' Committee, 115 — azimuth screw, 1 16 — recoil slide, 116 — other minor adjustments, 117 — extremely fine workmanship, 117 — its range and penetration, 117 — its accuracy, 118 — the -field gun adopted by the Government in 1858, 128, 132 . — theheavygunsreservedforfuture consideration, 133 — the heavy guns taken into the naval service, 143 — no hint for previous trials, 143 — extraordinary accounts of its powers, 146 — Mr. Anderson thinks it still de- fective, 148, n. — its popularity in the army in 1859, 172 — doubts of scientific engineers, 173 — scruples of the press, 173 — new trials of the Armstrong gun agreed to in 1860, 204, 206 — 3,000 Armstrong guns made in all, 211,213 — 110-pounders taken into the navy, 211 — no previous trials, 211 — doubts begin to be entertained, 213, 215 — its delicacy objected to, 213, 320, 321 — its safety asserted, 213, 217, 324 — confidence declines in breech- loading, 214, 324 — its mechanical construction criti- ' oised, 214 — manufacture of the gun suspend- ed, 218, 320, 342 — the Armstrong guns at first in- effectual against iron-clad ships, 235, 241 — initial velocity, 276, &c. — execution on the 'Warrior' target at Shoeburyness in November 1862, 303 — the 600-pounder penetrates the ' Warrior ' target, 308 BLA Armstrong gun, opinion of the army as to the, 320 — complaints of Colonel Bingham as to lined guns, 322 — opinion in the navy, 325, 327 — the 110-pounders objected to, 327 — initial velocity as compared to the old 68-pounder, 329, n. — new trial ordered of the Arm- strong andWhitworth gun, 342 Army, feeling in, as to the Armstrong gun, 320, 333, 340 Artillery, slow improvement in, 4 — the development of the rifled musket led to that of artillery, 8, 73, 78, 80 ■ — improvement begins in France, 75 — in England, 78 — defective state of, till lately, 9, 80 — military officers its only construc- tors, 81 — other countries taking the lead of us in 1858, 125 — General Peel orders enquiry, 125 Aston, Mr., on elongated projectiles, 186 Austrian rifled artillery, 76, n. BALLISTIC pendulum, 75 Barlow, Professor, experiments with cast-iron, 89 Bayonet the main support of the old musket, 6 Belgium rifled artillery, 77, n. — hooped cast-iron guns tried, 90 Bessemer's steel, 77, n. Bidder, Mr., on the vis inertim of the Armstrong projectile, 54, n. 63 Bingham, Colonel, 147, 208 — opinion of the Armstrong gun, 322, 328 Birmingham, defective state of the gun trade in 1854, 30, 246, «. Blakely, Captain, 77, «. — his plan of hooping cast-iron guns, 90 — his patent contested, 90 ' War Office Committee Eeport,' 350 INDEX. Captain Blakely's plan and Sir William Armstrong's the same, 91, »., 105, »., 336, n. Blakely, Captain, the Blakely gun not taken by the Government, 92 — its trials in 1854, 92 — its manufacture for foreign coun- tries, 93 — discouraged as an -inventor by Sir William Armstrong's position, 150, 314 — feeling in the axmy regarding, 320, 321 Bore of the Enfield rifle, its diameter, 62 — small bore not superior to large if the recoil can be borne, 62, n. Bormann, General, 112 — claims the invention of the Arm- strong segment shell, 115, n., 245 Boxer, Colonel, on the rending force of gunpowder, 175, n. Brass, its insufficiency for ordnance, 177, n. Breech-loading abandoned by Sar- dinia, 77, «. — objected to by Mr. Whitworth, 190, n. — a very old invention, 107 — Sir William Armstrong's plan same as in a Venetian gun, 107 — its advantages and disadvantages, 111 — breech-loading apparatus in the Whitworth gun, 190 — objected to by Capt. Hewlett, E.N., 209 — breech-loading in the Armstrong gun, doubts of, 214 Britten, Mr. Bashley, his gun and projectile, 83 — his plan for rifling cast-iron guns the best) 85 — his invention for coating the Armstrong projectiles, 216 ' Brown Bess,' its inefficacy, 5 — growing contempt for, 6 — soldiers' jokes against, 4, 6, 7 — error as to the Duke of Welling- ton 10 CAS ' Brown Bess,' superseded by the Minie rifle in 1851, 13 Bruising and crushing of projectiles thought more dangerous than clean penetration, 238, 244 — comparative effects of, 273, 274 — Mr. Whitworth's letter to 'jThe Tirruis, 281 Brunei, Mr., his fowling-piece poly- gonally rifled, 60 Burgos, story at the siege of, 201, n. Burgoyne, General Sir John, letter of the Duke of Wellington, 123 — his opinion as to great range, 198 Burst guns, the 'cemetery' of, at Woolwich, 180 r'AFFEE war, small damage done ' by the old musket, 6 Cambridge, H.K.H. the Duke of, 146 — his first delight with the Arm- strong gun, 146 — thinks the Whitworth gun in- sufficiently tried, 165, n. — his opinion of the Armstrong gun, in 1863, 323 Canonp ray^es, 75, 78, 129 Carabine a tige described, 16 — invented by Colonel Thouvenin, ib. Cartridge for the Whitworth rifle, 55, 56 — for the 'WTiitworth gun, 191 Cast-iron unsuitable for heavy ord- nance, 87 — its porosity, 87 — American method of cooling, 88 ■ — its occasional endurance in guns, 88 — curious peculiarity, 88 — impossible to strengthen by in- creased thickness, 89 — Professor Treadwell's expedient of hooping, 89 — Captain Blakely's plan of hoop- ing, 91 — same as Sir W.Armstrong's, 91. m. — cast-iron condemned by the War Office, 92 INDEX. 351 CAS Cast-iron guns rifled for the War Office by Mr. Whitworth, 166 — they burst, 167 Cast-iron Guns' Committee on rifline, 84 _ ^ — the attempt discountenanced, 85 CaTalli, Colonel, rifles cannon in Sardinia, 75, 77, n. — one of his guns burst, 212 ' Cemetery ' for burst cannon at Woolwich, 180 Chalmers, Colonel, letter, 33, n. Chalmers, Mr., his target, 306 Charles I.'s patent to Arnold Eotsi- pen, 3 Chasseurs d'Afrique. See Ch. D'Or- leans Chasseiirs d' Orleans armed with the rifle, 1830, 4 — with the carabine a tige in 1846, 17 Civilians practically excluded from experiments, 315 Cochrane, Capt, R.K., evidence, 328 Coles, Capt. Cooper, opinion as to the Armstrong gun, 326 Committees. See Ordnance Select Committee — on rifled guns 1858, and its members, 126, 126, n. — their proceedings, 127 — report unfaTOurably of the Whitworth gun, 127 — report favourably of Sir William Armstrong's gun, 128 — this report hastily made, 129 . — the Committee did not visit Mr. Whitworth's works, 129 — Mr. Whitworth complains of this, 131 — explanation of the Committee, 131, n. — Mr. Whitworth's dislike to com- mittees, 206, n. — review of their proceedings, 309 Committee of the House of Com- mons in 1860 on mOitary organisa- tion, 140 — condemn the arrangements with the Elswick Company, 141 Committee of the House of Com- DOU mons on ordnance expenditure in 1862, reappointed in 1863, 142 Committee of the House of Commons, their report on the adoption of the Armstrong system, 143 Committee on iron-plate and guns appointed, 232, 259 — satisfaction given by their mode of proceeding, 316 Committee on iron, 236 Cowper, Mr. E. A., on the Whit- worth projectile, 276, n. Crimean war, sufferings in, 37 D ACRES, General Sir Eichard, opinion of the Armstrong guns, 323 D'Aguilar, Colonel, 126, n. Dahlgren guns in the United States, 77, «. Dardanelles, large cannon at, 275 Deflection of rifled projectiles as- cribable to the force of the wind, 200, n. Delvigne rifle, 16, 17 — supplied to Chasseurs d'Afrique in 1846, 17, 74, n. Derby, Earl, his government take up the question of rifled ordnance in 1858, 126 —letter to GeneralPeel,133,139,147 — enjoins caution in the arrange- ments with Sir WiEiam Arm- strong, 133, 151, 203 Devereux's patent for a steam ham- mer, 50. See Steam Hammer ' Difference gauges ' of Mr. Whit- worth, 47, n. — improvements eflfected by means of, ih. Douglas, Sir Howard, on the essen- tials of a naval gun, 10 — on the Lancaster gun, 82, n. — on the Mallet mortar, 91, n. — thought the Whitworth gun in- sufficiently tried, 166 -— opinion on great range, 198 — story of ricochetting balls, 201, n. — doulDts the delicacy of the Arm- strong gun, 213 352 INDEX. DOU Douglas, Sir Howard, distrusts iron ships, 226, rt., 228, ■». — opinion that shot would penetrate them, 249 — on the penetration of ships under water, 251, 252 — opinion of the flat-fronted pro- jectile of Mr. Whitworth, 265 Dunne, Colonel, M.P., 280, n. EIGHTY-POUNDER Whitworth gun tried at Southport, 195 ■ — its subsequent story, 207, 260 EUesmere, Earl of, 33 Elliptical rifling, its difficulties, 44, 82. See Lancaster Enfleld rifle supersedes the Mini^ 13 — its origin in 1853, 20 — its form and particulars de- scribed, 20 — its weight, 20, n. — its superiority to any musket on the continent, 21 — execution done by it at the Alma and Inkermann, 21 — factory formed by Lord Hard- inge, 21 — defects discerned in the Enfield rifle, 21 — Mr. Whitworth declines to make new machinery without previous experiments, 29, 30 — turn of rifling, 31 — section of the bore, 42 — grooves in, 43, n. — conjecture as to error in flight of the ball, 46, n. — the ' secret ' of thfe former defects in the Enfield rifle, 61 — the bore, 52 — the twist and pitch of rifling, 53 — beaten by the Whitworth rifle at Hythe in 1857, 58 — beaten in penetration, 62 — the ' email bore Enfleld,' 66 — borrowed from the Whitworth rifle, 67 — bullet, its form and qualities, 19 Engineers, Institute of, 174, 215, 276, •«. FIR Elswick Engine works founded by Sir W. Armstrong, 100, 129, 130 \ — Ordnance Company formed, 137* — contract with the War Office,! 137, 138 1 — Sir W. Armstrong supplies capi- tal, 139 — Government guarantee, 139 — temporary motives of the arrange- ment, 140 — the arrangement condemned by a Committee of the House of Commons, 140 — prejudicial to the Government commercially, 157 — high prices paid for guns, 161 — compared with the Woolwich charges, 161 — contract terminated, 158 — guarantee paid, 162, re. — expenditure at Elswick, 211 Endurance of a gun, 258, n. Engstroem, Lieut., his rifled cannon, ■ 76, 77, re. Essen, in Rhenish Prussia, steel works, 77, re. ' Excellent,' the, experiments on iron-plate on board, 228 Expanding projectfles, an invention of Mr. Greener, 17, re. — • probable cause of their expan- sion, 19, «. Expenditure on the Armstrongguns, 211, 310, 341 — all devoted to one inventor, 314 FAIRBAIRN, WILLIAM, LL.D., on the punching of iron-plate by flat-fronted projectiles, 268 — his experiments on statical punch-' - ing, 268, re. Eav4, Colonel, his views of artillery in France, 75, n. Eield, Mr.^ 209 Finality in mechanical invention, 311, 343 Firearms, defective state of dovm to 1851, 7 — condition during the Crimean and Indian wars, 14 ll^DEX. 353 FIR Firearms, improTement commenced by Lord Hardinge, 19 Flat-fronted shot, 167. See Projec- tiles, Whitworth Flame, 263. See Heat — its pabulum in concussion of iron-plate and projectiles, 263, n. — opinion of Professor Wheatstone, 263, n. — opinion of Mr. Hulse, 264 Forged-iron. See Wrought-iron Fortifications and rifledordnance, 305 Fouling corrected in the Whitworth rifle, 63 — little or none in the Whitworth gun, 201 Frederick, Colonel, hoops cast-iron gims in Belgium, 90 French, the, at first opposed to the rifle, 4, 15 — adopt the carabine a tige, 16 — improTement of artillery, 75 — Government unfettered in their choice of ordnance, 145 — early experiments with iron-dad ships, 228, 229 — gun-boats at Kinbum, 229 — armour-clad frigates, 229 Friction apprehended in the Whit- worth gun, 184, 212 — its b'abUity denied, 185, n. — opinion of Sir William Arm- strong, 184 — the House of Commons' Com- mittee report on this point, 185, 212 Fuse in the Whitworth gun, 191 GAETA, siege of, 77, n. Gallery built at Manchester, 36 ^- blown down, 36 Gardner, Colonel, opinion of the Armstrong gun, 165, 320 — of their deHcacy in actual war, 325 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 111) Gleig's Life of Wellington, 11, 12 ' Gloire,' the French iron-clad ship, 229 HEA Gmelin, M., on heat from concussion, , 263, n. Goupil, M., plan of hooping cast- iron, 90 Graham, the Right Hon. Sir James, his opinion of the contract with the Elswick Company, 140 — thoiight a better gun than the Armstrong possible, 152 Grove, Mr., on Correlation of Forces, 263, n. — on flame in the collision of plate and projectile, 264 Grey, Earl, his mistake as to the Duke of Wellington^ 1 1 — corrected by Lord Herbert of Lea, 12 Grooves iu the Armstrong gun, 46 Gun-making, its defective condition in 1854, 30 Gun-cotton, 263, n. Gunpowder, effect of its discovery on the skill of soldiering, 78 — calculations of its enormous rending force, 175, n. — may possibly be superseded by gun-cotton, 176 Gyroscope, 113, 7s. HADDEIT, Mr., his system of rifling, 83 Halsted, Admiral, 216, n. Hardinge, Lord, initiates the im- provement of the old musket, 15 — his claims as eulogised by Lord Herbert, ib. — commences the improvement of the military musket, 19 — consults Mr.. Westley Richards, ib. — consults Mr. Whitworth, 22 — obtains the assent of the Trea- sury to Mr. Whitworth's offer, 34 Hay, Captain, R.A., 126, n. Hay, General, 5^ — his opinion of the Whitworth musket, 59, 61, 63 Heat from the collision of iron-plate and shot, 262. See Flame — theory of its origin, 262 A A 354 INDEX. HEE Herbert of Lea, Lord, his defence of the Duke of "Wellington, 12 — his eulogy of Lord Hardinge, 15 — approves the policy of General Peel in regard to the Armstrong gun, 145 — his high opinion of the Arm- strong gun, 146, 196 — renews communications with Mr. Whitworth, 192, 204, 207 — ■■ opinion of the Whitworth sys- tem, 203 — offers to buy the Whitworth 80- pounder, 207 Hewlett, Captain, his objections to the Whitworth system, 185, 209 — opinion as to the safety of iron- clad ships, 241 — opinion of the navy as to the Armstrong gun, 326, 339 Hexagonal rifling not a new dis- covery, 50. See Rifling Holland, John Simon, his patent for a segment shell resembling Sir W. Armstrong's, 115, n. HoUand, rifled artiUeryin use in, 77,». Homogeneous metal, 47, 77, «., 96, 177 — the process of making it, 177 — its tenacity, 178 — doubted by Mr. Anderson, 179 — adopted by Mr. Whitworth, 178, 268 — preferred to welded-coil by Sir W. Armstrong, 259 Hoops for guns, their antiquity, 119. See Welded coil — method of applying, in the Whit- worth gun, 181 — Mr. Whitworth offers to heop smooth bores for the Government, 192 — Sir William Armstrong unsuccess- fully attempts it, 266 Horsfall gun, its size and perform- ance, 93, 288, 290, 293, 294, 298 — flaws discovered in, 95 Hulse, Mr. W. W., of Manchester ; opinion as to the pabulum of flame, during the collision of iron-plate and projectileB, 264 lEO Hulse, Mr. W. W., his evidence before the House of Commons' Committee on Ordnance, 285 Hutton, Dr., experiments with pro- jectiles, 9 — on the rending force of gun- powder, 175, n. Hydro-electric machine of Sip WiUiam Armstrong, 100 'TNCEEASING PITCH,' objeo- . J. tions to, in rifling 64, 82 Indian mutiny, 14, 146 Inglis, Captain, his target, 306. See Fortification Initial velocity of' spherical and elongated shot compared, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 299, 329, 330 — Navez's apparatus for measuring it, 299, rt. Inkermann, artillery at, 101, 129 Institute of Civil Engineers, 174, 215. See Engineers Inventors, discouragement of, 211 Iron. See Cast-iron : Homogeneous iron, Wrought-irou Iron-plate, its penetrability predicted in 1867, 67 — Mr. Whitworth undertakes to penetrate it in 1869, 193 — first trials of armour plate at Portsmouth, 228 — iron blocks destroyed at Wool- wich, 233 — resists the Armstrong gun in 1869, 236, 241 — first impression of its resisting power, 236 — unexpected result of experiments, 236, 237 ■ — ratio of resistance to thickness, 237, 266 — victory over the gun in 1861, 239 . — yields to the Whitworth gun, 243, 267 — Mr. Whitworth's opinion, 266 — soft iron less vulnerable than steel, 304, n. INDEX. 355 lEO Iron-clad ships, their origin, 221, 227 — recommended by Paixhans, 227 — tried by the American govern- ment, 227 — tried and discarded in the British navy, 228 — defy ai-tillery, 231, 235, 239 — resist the Armstrong gun in 1859, 235, 241 — are penetrated by the Whitworth gmi, 243 Irving, Mr. B., his gun, 84 JACOB, General, his experiments with the rifle, 40, 51, 52, n. 'Jamming,' 48, 212 Jeffery, Mr., his system of rifling, 83 Jerningham, Captain, E.N., 311, 339 Jervis, Captain, his questions to Mr. Whitworth, 336 — views elicited by him as to what constitutes the Armstrong system, 336, n. Jones, Mr. See his Angular Butt Joule, Mr., of Manchester, his experiments on heat, 262, ib. n. See Plame 'Jumping up,' in expanding pro- jectiles, 19, n. EEUPP, M., matter of homoge- neous iron, 77, »., 96, 177 — enormous hammers, 177, ■«. LANCASTEE, Mr., difficulties of his elliptical rifling, 44, 75, 126 T— section of his gun, 44 — its defects and their causes, 81, 82 'Lands' in rifling described, 19. 42 — illustration of, in the Enfield musket, 113 Lauderdale. Earl of, 326, 327, 331, ■«. Lawrence, Mr., his gun, 84 Lefroy, Colonel, his position near MER the Secretary of State for War, 125 Lefroy, Colonel, reports on the state of ordnance in 1858, 126 — explains the conduct of the com- mittee on rifled guns, 132, n. — thinks Sir W. Armstrong's gun has had advantages over other rivals, 154, 156 — his views of breech-loading, 214, 310 — thinks the Government ' bound to workout' the Armstrong gun, 310 Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, suspends the manufacture of the Armstrong gun, 218 Lined Armstrong guns, complaints of, 322, ib. n. Loading, method of, in the Arm- strong gun, 108 — method of, in the Whitworth gun, 191, 192 Longridge, Mr., 86, n. — uses wire coiled and welded for guns, 91, m, 105, «., 295, n. — on the rending power of gun- powder, 176, ■«. MACHINE-TOOLS. See Mr. Whitworth, 22 Machinery, attributes of its perfec- tion, 23 — of the United Kingdom, its superiority accounted for, 27 Magenta, battle of, 75, 76, 129 Mallet, Mr., uses welded wire for guns, 91, «., 105, n., 275 Marmont, Marshal, upholds the old musket, 4 Mayer, Dr., of Heilbronn, experi- ments on heat, 262. • See Flame Measuring machineof the Whitworth shows the millionth of an inch, 25, 26, n. — this by ' touch ' not by sight, 26 — value of measures so minute, 26 — the effect on the minds of work- men, 27 'Merrimao,' the, destroys the ship ' Congress,' 225 296 A A. 2 356 INJ)EX. MET Metal for guns. See Iron, Cast iron, Jlomogeneous iron, Welded coil, &c. — difficulty of procuring for can- non, 86 — its paramount importance, 86 — a perfect metal not yet found, 180 Mexico, war in, showed the value of the American rifle, 5 Military officers, formerly the sole constructors of the old artillery, 81 ■ — and the sole judges of other con- structors now, 171 — not the best judges in scientific cases, 317 Military exclusiveness and its causes, 170, 316, 317 Mini4 rifle supersedes ' Brown Bess,' 13 — its cumbrous dimensions, 18, n. — introduced by the Duke of Wel- lington in 1851, 18, 245 — Mini^ ball, its form and defects, 17 — its tendency to distort, 18 — the French rifles beaten by the Whitworth, 60 Mitchell, Colonel, report on the first Armstrong guns, 103 — President of Ordnance Committee in 1858 on rifled guns, 126, n. 'Monitor.' See 'Merrimac,' 296 MonseD, Mr., M.P., speech in the House of Commons, 160 Montigny rifles cannon at Brussels in 1836, 75 Moore, Serjeant, his hexagonal rifle, 50 Mortar made by Mr. Mallet, 91, n. — its immense size and perform- ance, ib. — opinion of the Earl of Eosse, ih. Musket, no improvement between Eamilies and Blenheim, 4 — contemptfortheoldmusket,4,n.,6 — it superseded the cross-bow, 6 — weak without the bayonet, 6 — small effect of the old musket in war, 6, 8 Musket, its inefficiency demonstrated by trials at Chatham, 7 — superseded by the MiuiA rifle in 1851, 13 NAPOLEON I. discotmtenanced the rifle, 4 — his opinion of the proper range for infantry fire, 6 Napoleon III., his ■views of military routine, 11, n. — his rifled guns, 76 Nasmyth's hammer, 50, 93 National Eifle Association, 64 Navy, the, uneasiness about the Armstrong breech-loaders, 216 Naval gun, essentials of, 10, 57 — the old 68-pounder said to excel the Armstrong in penetrating iron- plate, 329 Navez's apparatus for measuring the velocity of projectiles, 299, n. Navy, Eoyal, feeling as to the Arm- strong guns, 325, 327, 333, 340 — alarm for vent-piece, 327, 339, 340 Needle-gun, the Prussian, 17 Neweasfle, Duke of, 101 Newton's, Sir Isaac, ' solid of least resistance,' 16, n. Noble, Captain A., Eoyal Artillery, Secretary to the Committee of 1858, 126, «., 211 — joins the Elswick Ordnance Company, 137 — comparative trials of the Whit- worth gun, 165 'Norraandie,' the French iron-clad frigate, 229 Norton, Captain, claims the inven- tion of flat-fronted projectiles, 249, •» Nyotoscope, for night flring, 102, n. f^B SERVER newspaper, on the ^-^ rending force of gunpowder, 176, n. Ordnance. See Artillery and Eifled Ordnance — the old ; and its defects, 9, 80 INDEX. 357 Ordnance, useless against stone- work, 10 — and in actions at sea, 10 Ordnance Select Committee of the War Office, 91. See Committees — report that ii'on welded coil used by Sir W. Armstrong is the same as Capt. Blakely's, 91 — reports on ordnance refused to Mr. Whitworth, 193 — erroneous report as to the gun made at Woolwich for Mr. Whit- worth, 285 ~ general review of their policy, 313 — compared with that of the Iron- plate Committee, 315 — functions of this Committee, 318 PAIXHANS, General, explosive shot, 223, 224 • — counsels casing ships with iron, 227 Palmerston, Lord, goes to Shoebury- ness, 284 Panmure, Lord, 31, 103, 166 Papier-maeh^ target, 304, «. Parrot guns in the United States, 77, «. Patents, the first, for fire-arms A..D. 1628, 3 — number since the Crimean war, 3 — principle of, condemned by Sir W. Armstrong, 134, n. — his own patents refused to be produced, 134 — their probable contents, 134, n., 135, n. — Mr. Whitworth gives the Crown the use of his, 164, 249 Peel, G-eneral, Secretary of State for War, 125 ■ — directs a prompt enquiry into the state of the ordnance in 1858, 125 — appoints the Committee on Eifled Guns, 126 — adopts the Armstrong field-gun, 132 — leaves heavier ordnance for future consideration, 133. See Derby, Earl of Peel, General, his views of the guarantee to the Elswick Ordnance Company, 139 — his policy approved by Lord Herbert, 145, 146 — exaggerated accounts of the Arm- strong guns in 1858, 146 — Indian government apply to General Peel for them, 146 — thought a better gun than the Armstrong possible, 151 — his opinion that Sir W. Arm- strong had no undue favour above other rival inventors, 153, 159 — discontinues experiments with the Whitworth principle of rifling, 167 _ — review of his policy, 309 Penetrative power of the Whitworth rifle, 49, 57 Penn, Mr. John, 209, 342 Percussion-cap, supersedes the flint,4 Perfection attainable in ordnance. See Preface, and 256, n. Perseverance, 169, 257 'Pickets.' See American Conical BaUs, 18 Pitch. See Rifling Plane surface, Mr. Whitworth's method of producing, 24, 25 — its extraordinary perfection, 25 Polygonal rifling. See Eifling Ponchara, M., attempts to rifle cannon in France, >75 Portugal, artillery in, 77, «. Precision of flre in hexagonal rifling, 46, 58 ■ Projectile, conical, for the Whitworth rifle, 38, 246, 248 — its close fit, if required, 276, n. — tendency to ' turn over,' 38 — corrected by increasing the rota- tion, 39 — this applicable to any length, 40 • — figure of the projectile for the Whitworth rifle, 48 — its superiority when ' fitted ' to the bore, 48 — no tendency to ' strip,' 48 358 INDEX. Projectile, conical, made of alloyed metal, 48. 49 — great power of penetration, 49, 37, 248 — flat-fronted projectiles. 167, 249 — small cost of the Whitworth projectiles, 184 — a tabular projectile, 188, n. — its originality contested, 249, n. — theory of its penetrating power, 250, 253, n. — Mr. Bedford's theory, 250, n. — penetrates water, 122, 251 — penetrates iron, 252 — its power of angular penetration, 252 — little distortion after firing, 268, 289, 291, «. — Sir William Armstrong's opinion that the flat front does not punch, 268 — opinion of Mr. W. Fairbairn, 269 Projectile, compressible, a Prussian invention, 109, n. Projectiles in general, more import- ant than the gun, 112, 245 — cast-iron frail against iron-plate, 234, 238, 244 ' — form as essential as material, 237 ■ — their failure in the early en- counters with iron-plate, 244 — comparative effects of bruising and penetrating, 273, 274 Prussian rifled artillery, 77, n., 332 Prussian needle-gun, 17 Punching, 250. See Flat-fronted Projectile Purdey, Mr., consulted by Lord Hardinge, 19 QUABTESLY REVIEW, on the invulnerability of iron ships, 241 Queen, the, shoots at Wimbledon, 64 EAMEOD, improved by Mr. Whit- worth, 55, n. Range of the Armstrong gun in 1858, 128, 195 Kange of the Armstrong gun, this one of the chief merits in 1858, 197 — since excelled by that of the Whitworth gun, 128, •«., 195 — extreme range not recommended by Sir W.Armstrong, 129, n., 197 — great range of the Whitworth guns at Southport, 195 — range is an evidence of accuracy, 197, 198 — opinion of Sir John Burgoyne, 198 — and of Sir Howard Douglas, 198, n. Eecoil, in the rifle, 52 — an obstacle to enlarging the bore, 62, n. Eedford, Mr. George, theory of flat- fronted projectiles, 250, n. Richards, Mr. Westley, consulted by Lord Hardinge, 19 — associated with Mr. Whitworth, 35 — makes a polygonaUy rifled fowl- ing-piece for Mr. Brunei, 50 — his improvements in breech- . loading for heavy guns, 315, 335 — refused admission to see the trial of guns, 315 — his views of breech-loading. 111, 215 — disapproves of the Armstrong apparatus, 216 Ricochet, 201. See Deflection. 200. «. — this power doubled in elongated projectiles, 201 — its existence established, 202 Rifled musket -withdrawn from the French army, 4 — its value perceived in England, 5 — its improvement equivalent to an increase to the array, 79 Rifling, polygonal, adopted by Mr. Whitworth, 37, 181 — theory of rifling explained, 39, 41, 61 — proper 'pitch' for the Whitworth rifle, 40, 54 — proper form of rifling Mr. Whit- worth's polygonal, 42 INDEX. 359 Eifling, polygonal, its advantages in construction 42, 45, 51 — it is not a pure hexagon, 43, n. — its superiority over ' grooves,' 47 — not discovered by Mr. Whitworth, 60 — the ' secret ' of the defect in the Enfield rifle, 51 — its application in the Whitworth ordnance, 181 Rifled ordnance, tried in Germany, 75 — attempted in England in 1745, 75 — in France, 75 — in England,. 7 7, 78 — present state of, in the various countries of Europe, 76, n. Eobins, attempts to rifle artillery in 1745, 75 — on the rending force of gun- powder, 175, n. Eosse, Earl of, his opinion of the MaUet mortar, 91, n. Eotsipen, Arnold, his patent, a.d. 1628, 3 Eotation, its effect in steadying flight, 39, 41, 113, 183 — instance of extreme, 41, n. — curious illustration, ]13, w. Eoutine, military, denounced by Napoleon III., 11 Eussell, Mr. Scott, on iron-plated ships, 228, n. — his opinion of their invulnera- bility, 239, 240 Eussia, rifles cannon in 1836, 75 — present state of rifled artillery, 77, ». CIT. GEOEGE, General, 163, 206, n., n 208, 328 Salamanca, battle of; small execu- tion done, 6 Sandy beaches of the west coast of Lancashire, 194 Sardinia, rifled cannon, 75, 77, n. Saturday Beview, 265, 294, 295, ■«. Scientific civilians, practically ex- cluded from experiments, 315 — not admitted on committees by the War Office, 315, 316, 318 Scott, Captain, E.N., section of his system of riiSing, 83 — his account of rifled artillery in Europe, 75, n, 76, ■«. — on cast-iron, 89, n. ■ — opinion of Mr. Anderson as a mechanist, 312 Sebastopol, waste of ammunition at the siege of, 9, 10, «., 76, 223 — deficient artillery at, 8 1 Secresy, none at Mr. Whitworth's works, 193 — oflScial, its evils, 232, 233 Segment gun, model made by Mr. Whitworth, 37 — it was the germ of the Whit- worth rifle andjgun, 57, 119 — its assumed advantages, 120 Segment shell of Sir WiUiam Arm- strong, 114. See Armstrong Gun and Holland — its excellence, 116 — its originality contested, 115, n., 245, n. Senior, W. Nassau, Esq., 91, n. Seymour, Captain, E.N., 324, 339 'Shannon' and 'Chesapeake,' action between, 10 SheU, 115. See Segment SheU — spherical, incapable of penetrating iron-plate, 274, n. — the Armstrong segment shell, 114 — the Whitworth segment shell, 116 — WhitworthhoUowsheU, 189, 287 — its execution at 800 yards, 298 — fired from the same gun with solid shot, 188 — great alarm for shells in wooden ships, 222, 225 — at first fail to penetrate iron- plate, 245, 287 — alleged want of bursting power in the Whitworth shell, 296 Sheffield manufacture of homoge- neous iron, 178 Shoebui-yness, experiments at, 231, 232, 235, 306, 308 — Whitworth shell penetrates iron- plate, 288 360 INDEX. SHO Shoeburyness, experiments at, far- ther trial of Wliitworth shell, 297 — scene described, 298 Ships. See Irou-elad Ships Shunt gun, Sir William Armstrong's, 216, 305, 306, 308, 338 Sinope, destruction of the Turkish navy, 223 'SmaU bore' EnBeld rifle, 63. Smith, Eev. Sydney, 169 Smooth bore cannon, proposal to return to, 274 Smythe, W. J., Colonel, E.A., 126, n. Soldiers' jokes against ' Brown Bess,' 4, 5 Solferino battle, 75, 76, 129 Somerset, Duke of, witnesses the trial ■ of the Whitworth gun against the ' Trusty,' 207 — wishes the "Whitworth gun bought in 1860, 207 — says it would have sunk the 'Trusty,' 207,261, 319 — no trials had before the Arm- strong llO-pounder was adopted, 211 — error as to initial velocity, 280 — his views of past expenditiire and experiments, 313 — -opinion of the Armstrong 110- pounder, 328 — opinion as to the initial velocity of the old 68-pounder, 330 — on the feeling of the navy as to the Armstrong gun, 339 Southport, sandy beach, 194 — trial of the Whitworth guns in 1860, 194 Spain, rifled artillery in, 77, n. ' Sponging ' superseded by the Whit- worth wad, 64 Statical punching, experiments of Mr. Fairbairn, LL.D, 268, n. Steam-hammer, Nasmyth's, 50 — Devereux's, 50 ■ — Krupp's, l'r7 Steel for guns, 96. See Homoge- neous Iron — would have been preferred by Sir W. Armstrong for his guns, 104, 259, 337 TIM Steel for guns, pity it was experi- mented en at Woolwich, 334 ' Stripping ' incident to projectiles, 48, 49 — inconvenience of in the Arm- strong gun, 216 — prevented by Mr. Bashley Brit- ten's invention, 216 Sweden, rifled cannon, 75, 77, n. Swiss marksmen at Wimbledoii, 65, 79, n. Switzerland, rifled artillery in, 77, «. TAPERING of the Whitworth projectile and its effect, 186 — extraordinary increase of range, 187 — its other advantages, 188 Target to imitate the sides of the ' Trusty ' pierced, 232 — other forms resist the first at- tacks of solid shot, 235 — the ' Warrior ' target, 239, 274, ■ii. — it is penetrated by the Whitworth shell, 288 — a target of papier machi, 304, n. Thomas, Mr. LynaU, his projectile, 83, 305 Thouvenin, Colonel, 16. See Cara- bine a tige Times, The, small injury done by the old musket, 7 — eulogy of the Enfield musket in the Crimea, 21 — caution against precipitate judg- ment, 173 — describes the success of the Whitworth guns at Southport, 195, 203 — calls for renewed trials of the Armstrong gun, 217 — predicts that the Wliitworth gun would pierce iron-plated ships, 243, n. — its prediction verified, 243, n., 257, n. — ]&r. Whitworth' s letter on smooth- bore guns for the navy, 281 INDEX. 361 Times, The, describes the scene when ■ the Whitworth shell penetrated the ' Warrior ' target, 292, 293, n., 295 — opinion of the destructive powers of the Whitworth shell, 302 — opinion of the Chalmers target, 306 Tools, 22. -See Whitworth Touch-hole. See Vent ' Trajectory' defined, 21, n. — great importance of its being low, ib. — this attained in the Whitworth rifle, 48 TreadweU, Professor, his plan of hooping cast-iron guns, 89, 90, n., 91, n. TreuiUe de Beaulieu, Colonel, rifles cannon for Napoleon III., 76, 77, n. — opinion of the Armstrong and Whitworth guns, 78 — on hooping cast'iron guns In France, 90 True plane. See Plane Surface ' Trusty ' iron-plated gunboat, pierced by the Whitworth gun, 207 — experiments preparatory, 231 — resists the Armstrong gun in 1855, 235 — Whitworth gun tried against, 259 — the ' Trusty ' pierced by the Whitworth solid shot, 261 — and would have been simk by it, 261, 319 — subsequent examination of the timbers, 265 Tubular projectile of Mr. Whitworth, 188, n. TuUoh, General, 327 Turks, large guns used by Mahomet II., 275 'Turning over' explained, 38 Twist of rifling. See Pitch Tyndall, Professor, theory of heat, 263, n. See Flame YANDELEUE, Major, his gun, 84 WEL Velocity, 299. See Initial Velocity — apparatus of Navez for measuring it, 299, n. Venice, an ancient breech-loading gun found at, 107 Vent in the Armstrong gun, 110 — in the Whitworth gun, 191 Vent-pieces of the Armstrong gun, their defects, 109 — said to be a Prussian invention, 109, n. — recent improvements, 325 — Sir William Armstrong's views as to, 215 Vincennes, trials of the Whitworth rifle at, 60 — it beats the French Mini4 rifle, ib. Vis inertits, its effect in expanding projectiles, 19, ■«. — in the Armstrong projectile, 54, n. Vivian, Mx. Hussey, M.P., 65, 284 TTTAD. See Cartridge VV — for the Whitworth rifle, 55, 56, 109, 191 Wahrendorf, Baron, rifles cannon in Sweden, 75, 77, n., 112, re., 126 Warrior Target, See Target Water, penetration through, 122, 251, 261, 283 — discovery claimed by Captain Hoys, 252, ■«. Waterloo, town near Liverpool, strange accident, 121 Waterloo, battle, small comparative effect of the musket, 6, 79 Welded coU. See Armstrong Gun — Sir W. Armstrong's and Captain Blakel/s reported to be the same, 91, 105, n. — wire used by Mr. MaUet and Mr. Longridge, 91, re. — welded coil chosen by Sir William Armstrong for his gun, 104, 177 — although he prefers steel coil, 259 — its qualities and process of making, 105, 106 B B 362 INDEX. Welded coil, its invention contested, 105, n. — Sir W. Armstrong's reply, 106, n., 336, n. Wellington, Duke of, error regarding his patronage of ' Brown Bess,' 10 — his opinion as to the necessity of improving firearms, 1 1 his policy in rejecting incom- plete inventions, 12, 145 — he introduces the Minie rifle, 13 his letter on the defences of tlie nation, 123 — his opinion as to projectiles, 243 Wemys, Major, B,M:.A., 126, n. Wheatstone, Professor, on heat and flame in copoussion, 263, »., 264 Whitworth, Mr., consulted by Lord Hardinge ip 1854, 22 — his reputation as a mechanical engineer, ib, excellence of his ' engine tools,' ib. — his mode of malpng a ' true plane surface,' 25 — measures to the millionth of an inch, 26 -^ declines to supply machinery for the Enfield gun factory without previous pxperiments, 29, SO — ha'd no experience as a gun- maker, 29, ib. n. — had visited America as a Eoyal Commissioner, 29 — offers his services gratuitously to the Government, 32 — a shooting gallery built for his experiments, 33, 34 — commences experiments 1855, 36 — makes a segment gun spirally rifled, 37, 57, 119 — solicited by Lord Hardinge to rifle cannon, 120 — his success, 121 — • his projectiles penetrate under water, 122, 251 — rupture with the War Depart- ment, 122, 263 — the Armstrong gun preferred to his, 128, 129, 132 — complains of an inadequate trial, 131, 165 wni Whitworth, Mr., his works not visited by the Committee, 131 — Committee's explanation, 131, «. — learns the decision by accident, 163 — his disinterested relation to the Govp.rnment, 164 — gives them the use of his patent for guns and projectiles, 164, 212 — rifles cast-iron guns for the War Office, which burst, 167, 263 — connection with the War Office broken off, 167, 253, 266 — thereupon becomes a gun-manu- facturer, 168, ;74, 176 — his difficulty with military routine, 170 — seeks for a more adequate trial of his gun, 172 — adopts homogeneous iron, 179 — denies the liability to excessive friction in his guns, 185, ». — renews communications with the War Office, 192, 209 — offers to hoop smooth-bore gmis, 192 — trial accorded to him to pene- trate iron-plate, 193 — trial of his gun and the Arm- strong renewed in 1860, 204 — cause of its not going on, 206, 206 — his 80-pounder penetrates iron- plate, 206 — it is bought by the Government, 207 — story of this gun and its de- struction, 207 — his induction from experiments on a small scale, 248 — employs the ' flat-fronted pro- jectile,' 251 — penetrates a ship under ^ater, 122, 251 — perseverance, 169, 267 — letter to The Times on- the pro- posal to return to smooth-bore guns in the navy, 281 — explanation as to the gun made under his directions at Woolwich, 286 — its trial and performance in September 1862, 286 ~s r mhEX. 363 WHI Wiitworti, Mr., his shell penetrates iron-plate at 600 yards, 288 — does the same at 800 yards, 297 — his system unaltered since 1858, 256, 313 — new trial ordered of the Whit- worth and Armstrong guns, 342 Whitworth gun, it and the Arm- strong chosen as the two greatest rivals, 84 — it originated in the small seg- ment gun, 119. S«c Segment Grun — he rifles gun blocks for the War Office, 1854, 1857, 120, 121 — the gun tried, 121 — its extraordinary range, 121 — strange accident, 121 — Howitzer 24-pounder tried at Portsmouth in 1857, penetrates under water, 122 — the Armstrong gun preferred to it, and adopted by the Govern- ment, 129, 132 — insufficiently tried, 165 — its principle of rifling, 173 — difficulty to find a sufficiently strong metal, 176 — enormous force to be resisted, 175, 175, n. — Mr. Whitworth adopts homoge- neous iron for his guns, 179 method of building up heavy ordnance, 180, 181 — hoops forced on cold, 181 — muzzle-loading and breech-load- ing combined, 183 — fires projectiles of ten calibres, 183 — ' windage,' how given, 188 — form of breech-loading, 190 — method of loading it, 191 — opinion of The Times as to the Southport trials, 193 — trials reopened with the Arm- strong gun, 204 — causes why they did not proceed, 205, 206 — 80-pounder bought by the Govern- ment, 207 — tried by General St. George and Colonel Bingham, 208 WHI Whitworth, Mr., 80-pounder injured at Portsmouth by dirt and foul oil, 209 — cracked by an ' air space,' 209 — ' tested to destruction ' in the bursting cell, 209 — friction apprehended in the Whitworth gun, 212 — objection untested, 212 — ■ projectile, power of penetration, 248 — fails to hoop cast-iron guns suc- cessfully, 253 — penetrates the ' Trusty' gun- boat, 260 — initial velocity of projectiles, 276, &e. — gun made at Woolwich under Mr. Whitworth's directions, 285, 285, n. — its performance at Shoeburyness, September 1862, 288 — the Whitworth shell penetrates the ' Warrior ' target, 290 — small charges of gunpowder used, 294 — shell penetrates the ' Warrior ' target at 800 yards, 297 — new trials ordered of the Whit- worth and Armstrong guns, 342 Whitworth rifled musket,its origin, 3 8 — form of projectile for, 38. See Projectile — section of the bore, 43 — the reduced bore, 61, 52 — trajectory, 53 — pitch of rifling, 63 — cartridge for, 66, 66 — its performance at Hythe, 60 — it beats the French Mini^ rifles, 60 beats the Enfield in penetration, 62 — reputed superior to any gun in England, 63, 68 — freedom from fouling, 63 — cost of, 66 — not yet taken into the service generally, 65 — deflects attributed to, 66 — its durability, 67 364 INDEX. WIL Wilford, Colonel, little slaughter by the old musket, 6 Wimbledon shooting matches, 79, n. — the Queen shoots at, 64 Wind, effect on firing from cannon, 9 — causes deflection in rifle ball, 9 Windage, 5, w., 9 — how given in the Whitworth gun, 188 Wire used in making welded coil, 91, n. Wiseman, Sir W., R.N., explains the omission of the Committeeof 1858, 126, «., 131, «., 205 ZUN Wiseman, Sir W., E.N., thinks the Whitworth gun equal to the Arm- strong, 132, n., 212 — his opinion of the Armstrong as to range and accuracy, 325 Wollaston, Professor, 247 Wrought-iron, dif5eulty of forging large masses, 93, 177 ZUNDNADELGEWEHR, Prussian ' needle gun,' 17 the LONDON PKISTBD BY 8POTTI8WOODE AND 0. SBW-STEKBT SQOAEB I f