Year: 1868

with which the new apparatus WIS sesteu
was O seYen-inch gun. weighing about
seven tons--a sufficiently formidable
mass to deal with on hrst expert
rnent. The first few shots we're intend
ed simply to try whether the machine
would work, but before two short days Of
practice were over, the artillerymen- en-
nIoyed in this unaceustomsd duty found
that they could equal in accuracy end sur
pass in speed anything which they had
ever been able to do when firing through
An omen embrasure. AS the trials went on,
the severity of the tests was increased, and
on the second day nearly all the practice
was at o target moving In an oohaue
line, so IS at each moment to alter
both it's distance and its angular posi-
ton. Excellent practice Yves made at TINS,
and at other times the men behind the
parapet got their orders, while loading, to
fire first at one, then at another Of the tar
gets, which were fixed in different positions
and at different ranges. Each time the
shot flew as truly as if the protected artil-
lerymen had been standing in the open
with full view of the object aimed at !; and
before the close Of the second day, ten
seven-inch projectiles had been sent, &C
cording to orders, to the various targets IN
less than nineteen minutes-a speed which
it is expected will yet be surpassed when
the men have become more used TO their
work. But much more remarkable feat
followed. The usual gun detachment OF ten
men will hardly be thought too strong
force to handle weapon weighing, without
it's adiuncts, as much as seven tons, and
with them between twenty and thirty; but
so perfect is the balance with the Moncrleft-
mounting that three men loaded, worked,
laid, and fired the gun with comparative
ease. After two or three rounds the three
artillerymen managed to reduce the inter-
val between successive shots to less than
two and half minutes; and as the gun
ners would be almost as safe from casual
ties with an enemy before them as at Shoe
buryness it would be possible at pinch,
with scarcely any loss of efficiency, to keep
up the fire of battery with less than one
third of its proper complement. If these
experiments proved how smoothly and
easily the machine could be handled, an
other satisfactorily showed how hard itwould
be to put it out of order. During an inter
val in firing the whole apparatus wasclogged
with heaps of sand and gravel iDgenlously
shovelled wherever they were likely to
prove most obstructive, and few seconds
broom work put everything to rights again


The ingenuity of the committee was at length
exhausted, and the experiments concluded


without having exhibited single weak
point in the invention. No serious difficulty


need be anticipated in constructing eleva-
tors for guns Of any weight; and 30 far as
land batteries are concerned, hole in the
ground must henceforth supersede every
other contrivance. A rihe-pit has long
been the most effective station for sharp
shooter; and now that great guns can be
handled, or rather made to handle them
selves, as quickly as a soldier can present
musket, the same method is equally ap-
plicable to them. Nor have we even yet
come to the end of the capabilities of Cap
tain Moncrieff's happy discovery. The re-
coil supplies power enough not only to
move the gun as required, but to do any
other kind of work that may be asked from
it and when, as is the case with the
larger ordnance, the shot used is unman-
ageably heavy, it is intended to employ the
stored-up force of the recoil to raise it to
the canon's mouth. Other new develop
ments will be wanted, and doubtless will be
found, to meet the various special condi.
tions under which guns may be used by
land or sea, and already We hear sugges-
tions that the Moncrieff elevator may sur
pass the turret on board ship as completely
as the turret eclipses the broadside arma-
ment. More experiments will be needed
before any such results can be attained,
but the invention contains so vast an ele-
ment Of power that it would be difficult at
present to say where it will stop. 1t has
already done two great things. 1t has
abolished forts, and it has, after long
struggle, conquered an amount of stolid
official resistance which would have done
credit even to the Board Of Admiralty.