MENTS IN MOUNTING AND WORKING GUNS IN SHIPS, FORTS, AND BATTERIES
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Walker at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 8th September
. 1865.
I, JOHN WALKER, of Cowper Street, City Road, in the County of Middlesex,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE
MENTS IN MOUNTING AND WORKING GUNS IN SHIPS, FORTS, AND BATTERIES," to be,
as follows:-
I first mount the gun slide upon which the gun carriage is supported upon
a shaft free to revolve in a socket or tube carried through the deck or floor,
and free to move in an elongated slot, the inner face of which is circular at
both ends. For greater strength the shaft is furnished at the top with a collar,
and for the ready training of the gun I fit friction rollers near the shaft and
under the slide. In order to retain the gun when trained I either use blocks
or I apply a worm wheel on the head of the shaft. The worm may be used
not only to retain the gun in the required position, but the gun may also be
trained by it. After firing the gun may be turned round for loading.
In order to work guns in pairs, and to communicate an up and down
notion to them, to allow of one gun being raised for firing while the other is
lowered and protected to be loaded, I support the bottom of my pipe or
socket on a bed plate attached by chains to a drum on or forming part of a
horizont.. shaft, and on one side of that shaft, and I connect a platform to
the top of the socket. I cut away or leave a space in the deck or floor to

page_text: receive the platform. I make similar arrangements, and connect another
pipe or socket on the opposite side of the same horizontal shaft. Round the
apertures in the deck or floor I erect a short screen which when the guns
are in position for firing comes below the level of the mouth thereof.
One gun and apparatus balances the other, and supposing them to be fitted
amidship, in, for instance, a gun boat, the guns may be made to sweep the
horizon. Now suppose the slides with their vertical shafts fitted in the
sockets, and the guns and carriages on the slides. One gun will be up above
the deck ready for firing and the other will be below, the deck being loaded,
in which act the gunners will be fully protected. The deck gun fired, rotation
is imparted to the horizontal shaft, when that gun descends and the loaded
gun is raised for firing, and so on. Should two guns not be required, then a
weight to balance one gun and apparatus must be connected to the opposite
side of the horizontal shaft. For the midship guns the sockets are not free
to move in a slot as is the case for port hole and embrasure guns.
Instead of running guns out for firing, I simply bring the muzzles up to or
near the port holes or embrasures, and to protect them and to carry off the
smoke consequent on the discharge I place a tube on the outside of the gun
and run it out when the gun is ready for being fired by sliding it along the gun.
In constructing new guns, I flute the outside of the barrel, but for guns already
constructed I place longitudinal ribs on the inside of the tube; thus recesses
are formed through which the air is drawn and the place of discharge ven-
tilated on the firing of the gun.