The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-05 00:00:00

CONTENTS OF TILE GLASS PALACE

ARMS.
[SeeoM sotlee.]

In the exhibition of tire arms the Belgians seem
to have taken a more mercantile view of the subject than
any other nation. Not only have we the iron in every
grade, from its state of rough bar to the highly finished
weapons, hut the Liege manufactures, amongst which the
assortment of arms of Aneion and Co. stand conspicuous,
having sent specimens of every description of barrel, stock,
and lock which are used in any trade or service. The
muskets are as good as the English, and, taking the differ-
ence of price into consideration, the one being double of
the other, decidedly better. They seem fond of indulging
in ingenious methods of loading at the breech, and have a
,fair specimen needle gun (No. 149), invented by M.
Dreyse, the famous percussion-cap maker of Sommcrda, in
Prussia, about the year 1830; from the desire of doing
away with the loss of time occasioned by handling the per-
cussion cap, the needle gun is now extensively used
in the Prussian army. It consists of a barrel
screwing into a socket, which extends about eight
inches from the stock ; the groove runs across at
right angles, and a small hammer to the side of
the socket. The works of the lock are in the interior of
the socket, consisting of a small pin on which the spiral
wire acts; a catch is attached to the trigger underneath,
and comes through the stock. When the piece is loaded,
and socket pushed up, the spiral wire is then contracted
and ready for firing. The cartridge is a conical-shape ball
fitting into a wooden cup, at the base of which is the
fulminating powder; the needle, therefore, has to traverse
I the powder to rcach the cup. The contrivance is inge-
nious; but, like all breech-loading guns, will not do in
practice ; and it was found that after fifteen hundred
rounds the Prussian needle musket, when tried in England,
was so damaged at the breech as to be unserviceable. The
needle gun was greatly improved by Mr. Sears, of Burton-
crescent, Londoa ; but, to strengthen the breech, he has
complicated the mechanism. The barrel is screwed into a
strong socket provided at top with a slot about
four-tenths of an inch broad ; and so much of the
socket is cut away, as leaves an oblong opening for the
introduction of the cartridge. Turning very care-
fully to the interior diameter of the socket is a
cylinder, which forms the breech of the gun, and has at
inched to it all the moving parts of the lock except the
trigger. A sliding piece, similar to the head of a bayonet,
pushes forward, and renders the breech of the barrel air-
tight, and not liable to be injured by any concussion. Al-
though a pretty piece of mechanism, it would not answer
on active service, where everything requires to be on the
simplest principle.
Many of the continental gunmakers have sent examples
of steel cast muskets ; amongst others the government fac-
tory of Wurtemberg, and Dandoy and Co., of Mauberge,
(France, 491,) seem to excel. Tho Wurtemberg rifle, being
browned, would not be known from those in common use,
and the Mauberge musket is a highly finished soldiery wea-
pon. The smaller German states are by no means back-
ward in the art, and Mecklenburg, (No. 2,) Lubeck, (No.
60 will bear comparison with any other in the place.
If, according to the theory of Mr. Michel Chevalier, we
are to trace the civilisation of nations by the manner in
which they work their iron, India must must stand high in
the social scale. The birth place of steel works, in an age
when thirty pounds of that precious metal was considered
a princely gift from Pores to the destroyer of the Persian
empire, India seems to have been the means of diffusing the
knowledge of working in steel gradually westward. The
whole collection is full of glorious trophies ; yet it is with
feelings of regret that one looks on those scymiters which
were once the pride of the chiefs of Delhi and Mysore. The
ore from which the steel is made is magnetic oxide
of iron, combined with quarts. It is found in
many parts of the south of India, but the dis-
trict of Salem is the principal seat of the steel
manufacture. The iron is put into the crucible in the
pure state without having gone through the process of
. . .

Cementation. The wood selected to carbonise the iron is the
cassia atericalsta, and the leaf used to cover the iron and
wood is that of the aselepias gigantism Working in this
simple way from the most remote ages, the Hindoo, little
dreaming about tke theory of his process, continues from
generation to generation in converting his iron into steel by
" medicine." The barrels of his "guns, the chain armour
are all excellent. The castings in brass displayed in the
shape of artillery, ue all of a high finish, and the wall
piece rifled with fourteen grooves, shows what attention
they paid to such matters, for the rifling of largo guns is a
subject which is beginning to attract the attention of all the
great European powers.:
The Belgian government, by no means backward in their
endeavours to pramote the object in view, has allowed the
director of the Royal Cannon Foundry to exhibit some iron
guns, which it would be well worth the while of the com-
mittee on ordnance expenditure to examine; for an English
iron gun requires reventing at the end of 300 rounds, and
with this revealing will not last more than 1,000 rounds.
Now the Belgians exhibit a gun revented which was fired
6,000 rounds, and another which, though fired 2,118 times,
has its vent scarcely altered. From whence does this
difference arise ? The advantages that charcoal pos-
I stases beyond that of pitcoal for the manufactur-
-1 ing of crude iron is not doubted ; and neither is
the expense really very different, when three tons
1 of coke is requiredifor one ton of pig iron, and 30 cwt. of char-
coal will turn out one ton of finest smooth-faced charcoal
iron. Yet why are ironmasters working for the ordnance
1 allowed to make use solely of pit-coal, when it is well
known that the use of charcoal will give three times the
amount of carbonisation, and therefore of elasticity and
tenacity, which is what is required to obtain a more perfect
metallic result?

The large shell exhibited is one of the tuneful nine which
made an extraordinary impression in military and political
affairs some twenty years ago. When Belgium separated
from Holland, In 1826, General Paixhans, of the French