The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-22 00:00:00

Nov. 19

Tho following promotions have been made :--31r James
Elenry to be First Class Assistant Engineers in her Na-
jesty's Fleet, with seniority of 18th October, 1864.

Nov. 21.
Lieutenant Charles Francis ;Valkcr has been this day
Promoted to the rank of Commander in her Majesty's
Fleet.

BANKRUPTS.
That portion of the Gazette containing the Bankrupts had
arrived when we went to press.

Course of Exchange,—This Day.

Amsterdam
Dito
3Months• 11 191 11 191
Rotterdam — 11 191 12 0
Antwerp • • 25 GI - 25 65
Brus,sels — 25 GO 25 65
hamburg .. 13 9 13 91-.
Paris
Ditto
Marseilles — 25 G 5 25 70
Frankfort on Maine — 1 1
Vienna
12`015
Iriesto
Potorsburgh .— 21
Berlin —
Madrid
Cadiz
Leghorn
Milan
Genoa
Naples
Palermo
Me55ina....,.,.,.,
Lisbon
Oporto

46 461
44 47g
26 80 25 85
25 80 26 85
25 84 25 85
26 821 25 871
26 82t 25 87t
26 821 25 87!
51i 51
51 51i

Foreign Gold in Bars (Standard)..., •. Per oz ,£3 17 9
Mexican Dollars.. 0 0 0

GENFAAL TODLEBEN paid a visit on Saturday
last to Naudiu's stulin, when a very successful! full-
length photograph of the Gmeral was taken.

AIRS. SUUTER—years ago, an actress of consider-
and for two years a resident and
a b consider-
able
annuitantrov in i n
tho celebrity,it
oyal Dramatic College, Maybury,
Surrey—died Nov. 4, aged 72 years. She had been allieted
for a length of time, but through the kindness of the
Council au additional sum was granted for a nurse; end
the resident surgeon, Thomas F. Fletcher, Eeq , has beta.
most unremitting in his attention. She was buried on the
9th ipst,, and her remains were fcllowed by several of har
old friends, the Council kindly beatiog all expellees.

Artillery Experiments at Portsmouth.

The competitive firing with the naval 70 pounder
guns at Portsmouth—one wedge breech loading
Armstrong, one shunt rifled muzzle loading Arm.
strong, and one Whitworth muzzle loader—was
brought to a close, with the exception of some few
rounds from the Whitworth gun, to ascertain the
penetration of shot under water, with the shell fir.
ing at the Aifred target ship on the 15th inst. ; and
the labours of the special committee, which have
conducted the experiments throughout,at Shoebury.
ness, Boxhill, and Portsmouth, having been all but
concluded, a brief analysis of the general results of
these c3stly experiments, so far as relates to the fir.
ing rat Portsmouth, and from a non-professional
point of view, may be interesting. Before further
noticing the general results at Portsmouth, it may
be as well to say a few words on the composition of
the special committee who have conducted the expe.
riments, and who have to present their report. The
question to be decided—the future armament of a
certain description of her Majesty's ships of war—
is a purely naval one, and yet the military element
predominates in the committee, and an officer of the
Royal Artillery is its secretary. In thus referring to
the committee none of its members can with justice
complain, for, as already stated, the question to be
decided on is one purely naval, and must have been
found by the officers of the Artillery, Engineers and
Infantry on the committee—not even excepting its
respected and energetic president, Major Gen. Ran.
dall Rumley—as profound a mystery as it would
have been to almost the veriest landsman, This spe-
cial committee, which have had now for some time
to conduct and have now to decide on a vitally im-
portant naval question,have been in fact an anomaly
from first to last, but they have certainly not been a
greater anomaly than the present laws and arranges
ments which includes the armament of the navy in
the army annual estimates. These anomalies have
led to errors and confusion in relation to the outfit

of her Majesty's ships; have had a most prejudicial
effect on the important question of their armament,
and have very nearly rendered worthless the facts
obtained from the experimental shell firing by these
70 pounder guns at Portsmouth. Any assertion of
this kind must necessarily be supported by presumed
facts, and these facts can in the present instance be
indisputably cited without fear of disproof. In the
first instance the trials at Portsmouth have been
generally understood to be a trial of the Armstrong
and Whitworth guns and their shells as against an
enemy, whereas it has been in fact but a trial of
fuzes, and even then a lamentable mistake and failure.
If a comparative trial of the guns and shells had
been simply intended, the use of the Petman fuze
(the best known description of percussion fuze we
possess) would have given the required comparative
results, and results which might have been im-
plicitly relied upon for their correctness, Instead of
this course being taken, the committee unfortunately
allowed the fuzes to be supplied with the guns and
shell, and hence the trials degenerated into a
trial of fuzes, deposing the main features of the
trials—the merits simply of each gun and its shell.
To this serious deviation from the straight course,
which it must be supposed was laid down in the dB.
cial programme of the committee's duties, was after-
wards added the additional error, and consequent
confusion, of a wrong selection of the Whitworth
fuze for shell firing en ricochet. It is well known
that Col, Boxer has supplied all the fazes for the
Whitworth shells,'or that they have been constructed
on a theory approved by that officer. These fuzes
we understand have been supplied of three diffe-
rent descriptions, as follows :

L Wood time fuze—To act as a perfect percus-
sion fuze, and also to stand ricochet firing.
2. Metal percussion fuze—To act immediately
after striking, or after a small interval, and to re-
sist ricochet on water.
3. Metal concussion fuze—To act on ricochet,
either an water or on land, and to accomplish this it
it has been made as sensitive as possible, and in•
tended to fire the shell on the latter striking the
water.

Now, it must be evident to a mind of the most
ordinary intelligence that Nos. 1 or 2 fuzee might
in all propriety have been selected by the Committee
for the Whitworth shell when the latter was fired
en ricochet, but that No. 3 fuze should not have
been used for the same purpose. The fact is, how.
ever, that No. 3 (specially constructed to explode
the shell on striking the water) was selected by
the Committee for ricochet firing, and if reference
is made to the returns of that firing it will be seen
at once what a prejudicial effect this course had
upon the action of the Whitworth shells. The
ricochet shell firing commenced from the Stork
gunboat over the Horse and Dean shoale, off Ports-
mouth, on the 7th inst., and, firing alternately with
the shunt gun (the shell of the latter being fitted
with the Elswick experimental fuze), the results of.
10 rounds fired from each gun gave the Whitworth
shell eight bursts on grazing the water, and the
shunt shell only one burst out of the 10 rounds. As
the object of firing over the shoals was to ascertain
whether the shells would withstand the; force
evolved by the contact with the water, without
bursting, it will be understood how really prejudi-
cial in the minds of the Committee this continuous
bursting of the Whitworth shells en ricochet must
naturally have been. Oa the 14th inst. this unfcr•
tunate error in the selection of the wrong fuze for
the Whitworth shell was more forcibly illustrated
in the ricochet shell firing at the Alfred target ship
in Porchester lake. Of 10 shells fired, eight burst
on or after grazing the water (as intended by Col.
Boxer), and two, which hit the ship direct, burst in
the ship. There were no means at hand for account-
ing for this apparently extreme sensitiveness of the
fuzes at the time, but now that the explanation is
given respecting the fuzes, the wonder that existed
in the minds of the Committee, that shells should
explode on their first or second graze en ricochet,
must vanish when it is found that the fuzes
with which they were fitted were " concussion
fuzes intended to burst on striking water."

The shells from the shunt gun burst in many in-
stances prematurely, but this is believed to have
been owing to :a slight excess of sensitiveness, a
fault that could cosily be remedied by the Elswick
Ordnance Company, and the more readily so, as the
fuze was experimental.
A comparative analysis of the effects of the Els-
wick and Whitworth shells would have been most
interesting had they both been fired, as they should
have been, with the Petman fuze, or had the right
fuze—No. 1 or 2—been selected by the committee,
or their representative, for the Whitworth small
shell with its 21Ib bursting charge produced results
which contrasted very favourably when compared
with the 4-11 b bursting charge of the shunt, or 4103
bursting charge of the wedge shell,:while the seven
21 inch shells from the Whitworth with their 51b
bursting charges created a greater amount of de-
struction in the Alfred target ship than any other
like number of shells fired throughout the whole
course ; but we understand these large shells, how-
ever effective they proved, were merely experimen-
tal, and will therefore not be allowed by the com-
mittee to join issue with the other shells in the offi-
cial report, which will be confined to the shells as
laid down in the programme. This course reduces
the competing shells to three kinds—the wedge,
with 411 b bursting charge ; shunt, with 41lb burst-
ing charge ; and Whitworth, with its 2„I1b bursting
charge. The wedge and shunt shells would most
undoubtedly kill and wound a greater number of
men on the gun-deck of an enemy's wooden ship in
action than the small Whitworth shell would under
like circumstances, owing to the fad of the Arm-
strong shell, with its greater diameter and nearly
double bursting charge, breaking into a greater
number of pieces than the Whitworth on
exploding, if any comparison is to be
band upon the rule that a shell's destruc-
tive powers must be measured by its bursting
charge. This rule does not appear, however, to
always hold good, for in several instances on board
the Alfred, whore solid timber was met with by the
shell previous to exploding, the Whitworth shell
had exhibited a greater rending power than the
softer shell from either the wedge or shunt guns.
It would be futile to attempt any further com-
parative analysis of the effects of the Armstrong or
Whitworth shells on board the Alfred target ship,
for if the statement respecting the supply of three
descriptions of fuze for the Whitworth gun and the

selection of the " concussion" fuze by some one for
ricochet firing is correct, then it becomes a grave
question for the consideration of the (' mmittee
whether the whole of the ricochet firing with the
rival guns has not thereby become n 1 lined, and
whether it will not be necessary t Lc) over the
whole course again.

In the "independent" and "quick" firing the
difference in time between the Whitworth and
shunt (both muzzle-loaders) was too trifling to be
of importance either way, but the wedge (breech-
loader) was in advance of both the other guns in
point of time, and proved itself eminently suitable
for rapid shell firing at a ship's upper-deck gun,
for sweeping an enemy's works with shell in pass-
ing along the face of works on the shore, or in
forcing the entrance of an harbour, It is, however,
unsuitable as a main-deck gun, as three or four such
weapons fired on a ship's main-deck with any
rapidity would stifle all the ship's crew. It is also
a gun requiring considerable attention, its key, or
looking bolt, being a rather delicate matter in con•
nexion with its wedge pieces, and the latter being
also liable to work stiffly every 30 or 40 rounds,
from the certainty that the grooves in which the
wedges work must foul after a certain number of
rounds have been fired, a fault which can be tempo-
rarily remedied with a bucket of waterand wet cloth.
The fouling of the Whitworth vent we have fully
referred to in the trials, and be sufficient to
remark further here that no difficulty whatever was
experienced with it in its after firing, when the
commonsense preeantion of passing the pricker
wire through the vent was resorted to. In accuracy
of shooting, so far as this was tried in the indepenv
dent firing, the Whitworth certainly beat both the
shunt and wedge gun, and in ease of loading it
almost, if not quite, equalled the ordinary smooth
bore. The Armstrong shunt and wedge guns are
as near perfection perhaps as shell guns as any gun
can possibly be rendered, if their effects are only
considered when fired against the sides of a wooden
ship. earthen parapets, wooden stockades, or any
other like yielding substance.

The Whitworth gun, with its large shell, pose
sesses an equally destructive power with the shunt
and wedge guns against like yielding substances,
but with its small shell the other guns would ap.
pear to have the advantage, if the rule is to be
retained that the destructive power of the shells
must be reckoned in proportion to their bursting
charges. As a shot gun the Whitworth gun far
excels both the shunt and wedge gun.
Thus far the guns have only been spoken of in
relation to their effects upon wooden ships and
earthworks, &c. If they are considered in relation
to iron plated ships and iron plated fortifications,
the future fighting material of every first class
Power at sea and on their coasts, then it must be at
once admitted that these 70-pounder guns are as
useless as a schoolboy's peashooter.