The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-24 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

The iron screw frigate Minotaur, Capt. F. A.
H erbert, manned by the officers and crew of the
Royal Sovereign, with seamen gunners from Her
Majesty's ship Excellent, and engineers and stokers
from the Steam Reserve, steamed out of Portsmouth
harbour yesterday at high water, and anchored at
Spithead. Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, G.C.8.,
Port-Admiral and Naval Commander-in-Chief at
Portsmouth, went out to Spithead in the ship, and,
after she had been brought to an anchor, returned
ashore in his steam yacht, the Fire Queen, Staff
Commander Paul. According to the arrangements
at the time of the Minotaur leaving Portsmouth
harbour yesterday, she will sail from Spithead at an
early hour on Thursday morning. Captain A. C.
Key, C. 8., commanding her Majesty's ship Excel-
lent, with his staff, previously embarked to conduct
the experiments with the 12k-ton guns- and their
carriages now on board the ship, with the dif-
ferent mechanical appliances fitted to the latter
for running the guns in and out, training, com-
pressing the recoil, &c. If the weather is found
sufficiently rough in the Channel off the Isle of
Wight the trials will be made there, but, if not, the
ship will proceed to Portland, and carry out the
contemplated trials in the "race" off Portland Bill,
or further westward, if necessary, according to the
state of the sea. The main conditions attending
the trials of these 12k-ton guns on the Minotaur's
broadside to be sought for are that the ship should
attain as near an extent of roll as may be possible
Ito that attained by the Royal Sovereign when try-
ing the same description of guns in her central tur-
rets--16 deg. In the recent limited cruises of the
Minotaur off the Isle of Wight the ship had on
board three 12k-ton guns—one mounted on Com-
mander Scott's iron-box girder-built slide and car-
riage, the second on the Woolwich Arsenal H iron
slide and its iron carriage, and the third on the Ad-
miralty pattern wooden slide and carriage, fitted
with eccentric movement rollers and other improve-
ments, as suggested to the Admiralty by Capt. A.
C. Key. All three of these guns were smoothbores
of 10.5-inch calibre, and all three, witlisthe same
slides and carriages, she takes to sea with her again
on this occasion. The Arsenal iron carriage is now
fitted with an improvement in the compressor, having
a much quicker action than the former one. The
fourth gun taken out on her cruise by the ship on
this occasion is also a 12k-ton gun, but it is rifled
on the Woolwich plan, with six shallow grooves,
on a Firth's steel tube, having a diameter of 9 inches.

This gun is mounted on a wooden slide and carriage
similar to that with Capt. Key's improvements. It
is not at all probable that the results of the trials
will be favourable to the wooden carriages in com-
parison with the two iron ones. This makes it the
more to be regretted that the iron carriage and its
slide now being manufactured by the Elswick Com-
pany from the designs of Sir William Armstrong
have not been completed in time to be sent on board
the Minotaur to mount the rifled gun she takes out
with her trial. In justice to Commander Scott we
are bound to state that his iron carriage and slide,
which mounts one of the 10.5-inch smooth bore
guns, has so far answered admirably under fire. In
the smooth-water trials that have been made--no
rough-water trials having yet been carried out for
want of a fitting opportunity—the gun has been
worked with the ease and regularity of clockwork.
'The gun, with its carriage and slide, is held in posi-
tion on the ship's deck most effectually by the hol-
low-sole& slide-rollers working over the massive
raised metal racers without the aid of the embrasure
pivot, and the compressors have been found fully
equal to check the gun at any desired length of
recoil, with single or double charges. It delivers a
very rapid fire, 12 rounds having been discharged

on the last day the Minotaur was off the ~l'iaht in

6 min. and 35 secs. On that day also its: com-
pressors came out of their trial with great credit.
The gun was being fired double shotted with 401 b.
powder charges. On the first round being fired
it recoiled 4ft. sin. on the slide. Nos. 3 and 4
of the gun's crew, who were loaders, asked for
more room for loading the gun in the next round,
and the adjusting screw of the compressors was
slackened up accordingly by direction of the captain
of the gun. On the gun being again fired she re-
coiled sft. Gin. This was rather more than the
loaders required, and a half turn was given the
opposite way again to the compressor wheel, when
the gun, on its third round, recoiled sft, which was
found to be just the distance required. We mention
this incident thus particularly as best illustrating
the ease with which the compressors of Captain
Scott's carriage are adjusted, and the power they
hold over the movement of the gun, and at the same
time take the opportunity of remarking that the
compressors may even now be very much improved
by rendering them self-acting. There are many
parts of this carriage and its slide, or rather of their
fittings, which may be very much simplified, this
opinion being one which Capt. Scott appears to
share. For instance, there is the elevating screw.
It works admirably in giving the gun quick eleva-
tion and depression at moderate angles, but it ap-
pears in its present arrangement, with its rigid ver-
tical screw, to be somewhat unsuited to extreme
elevations of the gun in firing. This, however, yet
remains for actual proof, and at the same time it
must be confessed that, in all probability, but few
opportunities will be taken of firing the 1.2f-ton
guns of any • ironclad's main deck batteries at ex-
treme elevations, owing to the confined nature of
the gunports. Objections have been raised to the
observation made in our naval intelligence of the
20th inst., that in all three gun carriages and their
slides then on board the Minotaur " there was not
a single new mechanical contrivance or idea."
There now seems no reason for modifying this state-
ment. The guns, in each instance, are carried on
their carriages as in years past, and the carriages
themselves run on the same form of slides. Two of
the carriages are certainly made of iron, in lieu of
wood, but this change of material in a body keep-
ing the old form cannot be termed " a new"
mechanical idea. With regard to the fittings of
the gun carriages and their slides ; endless chains,
eccentric motions, friction compressors, and
other arrangements of a like nature, cannot be
termed " new." They are simply mechanical forms
of power in daily use in all parts of the world, but in
the present cases are for the first time applied in
their new arrangements to the working of heavy guns
on a ship's broadside—adaptations of sound prin-
ciples, and adapted, too, in a most ingenious man-
ner. The Minotaur will be swung to-day at Spit-
head to ascertain the deviation of her compass, pre-
paratory to leaving to-morrow on the cruise, which,
if she completes the trials of the guns and their car-
riages, as at present intended, may possibly be a
somewhat lengthened one.
The Oberon, 3, iron paddle steamer, 649 tons,
260 horse-power, Commander Edmund H. Verney,
sailed from Portsmouth yesterday at noon for the
West Coast of Africa.
The decision of the Lords Commissioners of the
Admiralty relative to the disposal of her Majesty's
20-gun screw corvette Tartar, in dock at Woolwich,
was yesterday made known. It is—" That, taking
into consideration the large amount of expenditure
necessary for repairs to put the Tartar into service-
able condition, according to the official report after
the departmental survey of the injuries to the ship,
their lordships have ordered that her hull shall be
made watertight, in order to convey her to Messrs.
Castle and Beech's yard at Charlton to be broken
up." The steam corvette Archer, ordered to be paid
out or commission on Tuesday next, at Woolwich,
is ordered to be opened out, so as to ascertain by in-

vestigation and inspection of her timbers if any cause

can be discovered in decay or rot to account for the

fatal outbreak of disease already detailed in 2 he Sun.
Yesterday a general court-martial, convened by
order of the Duke of Cambridge, assembled in

the court-martial room at Chatham garrison, under
the presidency of ColonelJ. W. S. Smith, C. 8., com-
manding the Ist Battalion, for the trial of Duncan
M'Millan, a sapper in the Royal Engineers. Colo-
nel J. H. Laye, Deputy Judge-Advocate for the
district, officiated at the trial, and conducted the
prosecution. The prisoner was charged with re-
peated acts of insubordination and insolence towards
his commanding officer, Colonel Simmons, C. 8.,
with breaking out of barracks, and making away
with his regimental necessaries. It was proved at
the trial that the prisoner has been in the corps of
Royal Engineers about six years. and that during
the whole of that time his conduct had been very
bad. He has been repeatedly tried by district and
other courts-martial, and has scarcely, owing to his
repeated imprisonment, performed a twelvemonth's
duty- the whole time he has been in the service. The
Court found the prisoner guilty, but the sentence
passed on him will not be promulgated until it has
been submitted to her Majesty for approval.
We have to report the death of Capt. John Moore,
R.N., C. 8., which took place on Saturday morning
at his residence, Brook-farm, near Chobham, Surrey.
The deceased entered the navy on the 7th of Feb.,
1834, and on the 22d of Sept., 1841, was promoted
to the rank of lieut. while serving on board the
Caledonia, 120, flagship of his father, Admiral Sir
Graham Moore, G. C.8.,G.C . M. G. On the 30th
of October of the same year he was nominated
additional lieut. of the Queen, 110, fitting at Ports-
mouth for the flag of Sir Edward Owen. He was
from the 26th of July, 1842, until advanced to the
rank of commander, on the 22d of November, 1843,
employed on the Mediterranean station in the Aigle,
24, Capt. Lord Clarence Paget. On the 12th of
November, 1846, he was appointed to the command
of the Harlequin, 12, again in the Mediterranean.
He was appointed in March, 1853, to her Majesty's
ship Highflyer, which he commanded throughout the
war with Russia, and during all the operations in the
Black Sea in 1854 and 1855. For his services during
the war he was nominated on the sth of July, 1855,
a Companion of the Order of the Bath, and had
received the decoration of the Medjidie of the third
class from the Sultan. In March, 1858, he was ap-
pointed to command the Hogue, guardship in the
Coastguard, which he held a short time, and then
was selected by the Duke of Somerset, First Lord
of the Admiralty, as his private secretary, a post he
filled for upwards of three years, when he retired
from ill-health. He was appointed a naval aide-de-
camp to the Queen in January, 1864. Capt. Moore
was nephew of Gen. Sir John Moore, the hero of
Corunna, after he was named. He attained the
rank of commander the 22d of November, 1843
and his post rank November 22, 1848.