Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1866-07-12
Cannon and Cannon Balls

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\ We find an allusion to cannon
says the Army and Navy Journal
as early as the Spanish chronicle
of Alfonzo VI, written by Pedro
bishop Of Leon. In describing {
sea fight in the eleventh century
! between the Emirs of Seville and
Tunis, he says: ''The vessels of
the king of Tunis had ON board q
number of iron pipes, out of which
volumes of laundering fire (toaeaos
de tuego) were discharged" The
first cannon cast in England are
said to have been made by John
Owen, in 1921; but the art ap-
pears to have been introduced in a
high, state of perfection. Two
large brass guns recovered in 1885
from the Mary Rose, which was
sunk at Spithead in 1645-one a
6S FOUNDER and the other "a
pounder-in beauty of design and
Workmanship are equal to any
thing producedi in the present day.
The largest gun ever made in Eng
land up to lS43 was one weighing
Is tons, cast in that year for Me-
hemet Ali, Pacha of Egypt. The
bore of the gun was about within
one-tenth of an inch of sixteen
inches Us 9-10 inches.) The
weight of its solid shot was 455
pounds, andof itsshell 800 pounds.
This gun was II feet long, and
had an immense quantity of metal
at the breech.
A story is told of a cannon in
Beiapoor, India, which weighs for
lty tons. A seat in the interior ac-
commodities five persons without
much crowding. 1t is formed of
mixed metal, of which there is
said to be some portions of gold
and a considerable quantity of
silver, and is very sonorous. 1t
was the work of Chuteby Kahn,
an officer in the service of Hoose-
i'm Nazam Shah, at Ahmudnug-
ger. In giving description of it
Col. Sykes says:
"On the visit of Sir John NAL
colin during a period of viceroy-
ship at Bombay, tie Sattorah Ra-
jah, who holds the surrounding
territories under the British Gov
ernment, directed that this gun
should be fired off as an appropri-
ate salute. Though not charged
with more than half the weight
of powder which its chamber
could contain, the concussion was
awful, 1t shook many of the blild-
ings to their foundations, and the
terrified inhabitants, as the rever-
berations rolled along, expected to
see the domes and towersys survi-
vors of the former shocks, come
tumbling about their ears"
At the siege of Antwerp, in
1880, Gen. Paixhan of the French
artillery proposed to King Leopold
to shorten the siege by the means
of mortar, the shells of which
would weigh a thousand pounds,
and contained each one hundred
pounds of.powder. The proposal
was thought to be inhuman, and
it was not until after fifty thousand
cannon balls and shells had been
spent in a vain bombardment that
the monster mortaf-a charcoal
casting made at Leige-was
brought out. Nine shells were
fired, huge flying masses, one OF
which burst in the air and eight
descended into the citadel. Two
days after the first shell was fired
the Dutch surrendered.
The artillery used at the siege
of Baza, in the war of Grenada,
during the siege of Ferdinand and
Isabella, were called bombards. Il
They are still to be seen in that
city, where they long served as
columns in the public market
place. The largest are of about
twelve feet in length, consisting Of
iron bars two inches in breadth,
held together by bolts and rings
of the same metal. They were
firmly attached to their carriages,
incapable of either vertical or hor-
izontal movement. The balls
thrown from these engines We're
sometimes Of iron, but moro usual
ly of marble. Several hundred
of the latter have been picked up
on the hills around Baza, many of
which are fourteen inches in diam
eter. and weigh It's pounds.