Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-07-19

This is a city of strategic and historic
Bingen; and there begins the mar
velous scenery which has given to the
Rhine such worldwide celebrity, and
has made familiar the names of such
trifing though picturesque hamlets az
Oberwesel, st. Goar, Boppart, Ander-
mach, Baeharaeh, Remagen and the
like. Midway among these is Cob
lentz. overlooked by "Ehrenbreit-
STEMS castled hight" and still further
down the stream is the collegiate town
of Bonn.
To add all these to the long list of
French towns would certainly be a
splendid gain to France; this is what
is meant when Frenchmen cry with
Victor Hugo: stake back the Rhine"
1t is, however, a large enterprise, and
not likely to succeed.
A FEARFUL INSTRUMENT OF WAR
FARE.
The last and most destructive of the
death-dealing projectile,s the explo-
sive bullet, designed by Pertuiset, and
executed by a French artisan in the
celebrated firearms factory of De-
visme, is described in the last num-
Der of the Army and Nary Journal.
Externally quite similar to the origi-
nal Mimic eylindric-conical mass of
lead, it is discovered, by an unscreW-
ing of its length about midway, to be
internally a magazine of illuminate.
The explosive compOund-dynamite
powder, condensed powder, or what.
ever it may be-has an explosive
force six times that of gunpowder.
Experiments which have been made
under the patronage of the Russian,
Prussian andSAustTian governments,
and last by our own War Department,
demonstrate not only its effectiveness,
but the singular properties its
inventor has given it. "Being given
the distance of the target, its
density, the quantity of charge in the
gun, and the same of the ingredients
constituting the projectile," he has
established a most exact relation, by
accurate calculation, between the force
necessary to explode the p~rOjectile and
its penetration before subsection to
this pressure. Thus the magazine can
be 50 constituted that the passage of
the bullet through a sheet of paper will
explode it, or so that the severe impact
of iron or hard wood is needed for such
areSult. Its comforting to be assured
that " ball which would not explode
in the body of a soldier or a horse, if
not at a very limited distance, would
explode in the more resisting body of
an ammunition wagon"
Though NJ. P~ertuiset is the inventor
OF the particular missile to which our
attention has been drawn, by q singu-
lar propriety of circumstances Prince
Pierre Napoleon, the Gete ROire of the
Bonaparte family, appears to have
been its inspirer. From a little PAM
phlet, badly translated from an essay
on explosive prOjectiles, written by
the Prince, we are not surprised to
learn that its author entertained the
idea quite a number of years ago, and
even applied TO Devisme to make him
a gun of particular calibre, suited to a
hollow p~rojectile of copper, or of an
alloy of lead and anthony. The fact
of Devisme's declining to produce the
arm, defeated the Princes purpose.
The ethics of slaughter are defined
in nc recognized code, but there is a
pretty general accord among nations
that explosive bullets shall not be
used in small arms. Our readers have
not forgotten the convention into
which, at the instance of Russia, the
prominent nations of Europe entered
a year Or two ago. During our own
war there was an occasional sugges-
ton of such missiles being used, but
we prefer to believe that the few cited
instances wer altogether imaginary.
We know that an invention of this
nature-whether Pertuiset's or not,
We are uncertain-Was offered to the
Confederates and declined, on the
score of pure sentiment, by the Board
of Examining Officers; and, if our
memory is not at fault, the Internal
missile was considered in a similar
spirit by u War Department.
At the recent trial OF Pertuiset's
.projectile, made by the ordnance De-
partment at Washington, the purpose
Of experiments seems to have been TO
demonstrate its utility in exploding
caissons, artillery wagons, etc. The
twenty-seyen shots, made at all sorts
of targets, proved the excellence of
the illuminate for such purposes. We
are very sur that no civilized gov
eminent will be disposed to adopt an
explosive missile for any other pur-
pose. Despite the partisanship of
Prince Pierre, in a letter to his impe-
rial cousin, Napoleon rejected it at
onpn-