The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-04-12
Cannon and Cannon Rails.

We find an allusion to cannon as early as the
Spanish chronicle of Alfonso vi, written by
Pedro Bishops of Leon. In describing sea
fight in the eleventh century, between the Emrs
OF Seville and Tunis, he says:-''The vessel of
the King of Tunis had on board a number Of
iron pipes, out of which volumes of laundering
fire (tOnenos de fOegOl were discharged" The
first cannon cast IN England are said to have
been made by John 0wen,s ,sin 1925 but the art
appears 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 1545-one a 6Spounder and the
other 24-pounder-in beauty of design and
workmanship are equal to anything produced
In the present day. The largest gun ever made
eighteen tons, cast in that year for Mehemet
Ali, Pacha of Egypt The bore of the gun was
about within one-tenth of an inch of sixteen
inches (l5 9-l0 inches). The weight of its solid
shot was 455 pounds, and OF its shell, 800 pounds
This gun was twelve feet long, and had an inn
mense quantity of metal at the breech.
A story is told of cannon in Beiapoor, India,
which weighs lorty tons. A seat in the interior
accommodates five persons, without much
crowdlng. 1t is formed of mixed metal, of
which there is said to be some portions of gold
and considerable quantity of silver, and is
very sonorous. 1t was the work OF Chuteby
Coomy Khan, an officer in the service of Hoos-
seim Nizam Shah, at Ahmudnugger. In giving
a description of it, Colonel Sykes says;-"On
the visit of Sir John Malcolm during period OF
his Viceroyship at Bombay, the Sattorah Raah,
who holds the surrounding territories under the
British Government, directed that this gun
should be fired off as an appropriate salute
Though not charged with more than half the
weight of powder which its chamber could con-
tain, the concussion was awful it shook many
of the buildings to their foundations, and the
terrified inhabitants, as the reverberatons rolled
along, expected to see the domes aud towers,
survivors of the former shocks, come tumbling
about their ears"
At the siege of Antwerp, in 1880, General
Paixhans, of the French Artillery proposed to
/ 70. nrfn 0in h of
mortar, the shells OF which would weigh o
| thousand pounds, and contain 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 vain bombardment that the monster
mortar-a charcoal casting made at Liege-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 B1za in the
war of Granada during the siege of Ferdinand
| and Isabella, were called bombards. They are
still to be seen in that city, where they long
| served as columns in the public market place.
The largest fare of about twelve feet in length,
| consisting of iron bars two inches in breadth,
| held together by bolts and rings of the same
metal. These were firmly attached to their car
riages, incapable of either vertical horizontal
movement. The balls thrown from these en-
| gines were sometimes of iron, but more usually
| OF marble. Several hundred of the latter have
| been picked up on the hills around Baza, many
of which are fourteen inches in diameter, and
weigh us pounds. At the siege Of Balagner, at
the beginning of the fifteenth century, according
to Zlrita, stone balls were discovered which
weighed not less than $50 pounds. A gun reco-
vered from one of the Turkish ships destroyed
at Tohesme in ITO was fourteen feet two inches
| III LENGTH, nine feet in circumference, twenty
inches bore, and 2l0 cwt., or %, 526 lbs weight.
| The first instance of horizontal shell firing on
record is that at the siege of Gibraltar, in 1779,
where Captain Mercier, of the 39th Regiment,
suggested that five and a halt inch shells, with
| short-caculated fuses, should be fired from
| guns. This practice answered so we'll that il
became general. Red-hot balls we're first used
by stephen Bathor, King of Poland, at the siege
| of Dautzig 1876.
Pistols were first used by the Germans; Bellav
| mentions them in the year 1544. In the time o
Francis l and under Henry II the German horse
men, des reaterS, were called p5StOl1erS.-ATnll
| and NdUy Journal