The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-25 00:00:00

LONG SHOTS.

The Daily News contains an article on "long shots"
which is worth reading. It is written. d propos of the
announcement that Whitworth's gun will carry the shot
nearly six-and-a-half miles :—" Very few have any idea of
the difficulties which oppose themselves to the attainment
of a great range in artillery practice. It may seem at
first sight the simplest possible matter to obtain an
increase of range. Let the gun be made but
strong enough to bear a sufficient charge, and
range seems simply to be a question of the
quantity of powder made use of. But in reality the
matter is much more complicated. The artillerist has to
contrive that the whole of the powder made use of shall be
burned before the shot leaves the cannon, and yet that
the charge shall not explode so rapidly as to burst the
cannon. If he used some forms of powder, very useful
for special purposes, half the charge r•nuld be blown
out without doing its share of work. On the other
hand, there are some combustibles —as gun-cotton
and the nitrates which burn so fast that the gun
would be likely to burst before the shot could be
expelled. Then, again, the shot must fit so closely that
there shall be no windage, and yet not so closely as ti'
resist too much the action of the exploding powder.
Again, there is the form of the shot to be considered. A
sphere is not the solid which passes most readily through
a resisting medium like the air, and yet other projectiles,
which are best so long as they maintain a certain position,
i meet with a greater resistance when once they begin to
move unsteadily. The conoid used in ordinary rifle practice,
for example, passes much more freely through the air,
point first, than an ordinary spherical bullet ; but if
the point did not travel first, as would happen but
for the rifling, or even if the conoidal bullet `swayed
about' in its course, it would meet with more resistance
than a spherical bullet. Hence the question of ' fast or
slow rifling' has to be considered. ' Fast rifling' gives
the greater spin, but causes more resistance in the exit of
the shot from the barrel ; with ' slow rifling? these con-
ditions are reversed. And then the cogunon notion is
that a cannon-ball travels in the curve called a parabola,
and that artillerists have nothing to do but to calcn-
late all about this parabola, and to deduce the range
from the initial velocity according to some simple
principles deduced from the properties of the curve. All
this is founded on a complete misapprehension of the diffi-
culties in the way of the problem. It is only projectiles
thrown with small velocity from the earth which travel in
parabolic paths. A cannon-ball follows a wholly different
kind of curve. The resistance of the air, which seems to
most persons a wholly insignificant item in the inquiry,
Is so enormous in the case of the cannon-ball as to become
by far the most important difficulty in the way o
the practical artillerest. When a 2501 b. shot is hurled
with such force from a gun as to cover a range of six
miles, the resistance of the air is about forty times the
; weight of the ball—that is, is equivalent to a weight of
upwards of four tons. The range in such a case as this is
but a small fraction of that which would be given by the
ordinary parabolic theory. As regards artillery practice
in war, cannon meant for battering down forts cannot
possibly be used in the same way as Whitworth's was
used at Shoeburyness. If the shot flung from this gun at
, an elevation of 33 degrees could have been watched') it
would have been found that it fell to the earth at a much
greater angle—that is, much more nearly in a perpen-
I dicular direction. On the ordinary parabolic theory, of
course, the angle of fall would be the same as the angle of
elevation, but under actual circumstances there is an
im-
portant difference. If forts are to be battered down, how-
ever, it will not prove that they should be struck from
above ; our artillerists must perforce keep to the old
method of pounding away at the face of the forts they
, attack. Therefore, an elevation which is all very
well for mortars that is, when the question
merely is of flinging a bomb into a town-. or
fortress—is utterly unsuited for ordinary artiller34
The progress of the modern science of gunnery certaitaly
tends to increase the distance at which armies will engage
each other. With field artillery flinging shot to a distance
of two or three miles, and riflemen able to make tolerably
sure practice at a distance of three-quarters of a mile,
we are not likely often to hear of band-to-hand con-
flicts in future warfare. The use of breech-loaders
will also tend to the same effect. Hitherto we have
scarcely had experience of the results which these
changes are to produce on modern warfare ; at
Sadowa breech-loaders did not encounter breech-loaders,
and it was easy for the victors in that battle to come to
close quarters with their enemies. But in a battle where
both sides are armed with breech-loaders, we shall pro-
bably see another sort of affair altogether. The bayonet
will be an almost useless addition to the soldier's arms ; a
charge of cavalry upon well-armed infantry will be almost
as hopeless as the famous Balaklava charge ; and the
I artillery on either side will have to play a game at long
shots. We venture to anticipate that the first great Euro
pean war will introduce a total change into the whole
system of warlike manoeuvres.

CHARTREUSE.—Two French noblemen, one a dis-
tinguished general and the other a lieutenant in the arm y
mad both young, have retired to very private life indeed—
ths motive for which is unknown. They have entered the
monastery of Chartreuse de Grenoble, situated in the
iepth of a forest. The rules of the order are more severe
4han those of La Trappe : —" Brother, we must die,"is their
only salutation and conversation each day. The climate is
rigorous—the only meal partaken of, and in the evening,
is a few ounces of bread and a little wine—even in illness
the most grave, no alteration is made in the dietary.
ME,. GLADSTONE'S SPEECHES. —The amount of
labour which Mr. Gladstone has undergone during his
recent electioneering campaign may be estimated from
the fact that his speeches delivered before the electors of
South Lancashire, and sent by telegraph to London and
elsewhere, comprise 59,915 words, or, allowing 2,000 words
to a column, something like 30 columns of newspaper matter.
In this calculation several addresses, of which copies were
transmitted by post, are not considered. Mr. Bright's
speeches, delivered recently in Birmingham and Edin-
burgh, comprised 33,989 words, or about sixteen columns
And a half of newspaper matter. The addresses of the two
hon. gentlemen would, if placed in succession, occupy
shout the space of PA Fi.2* #491 gia rtiliff.