of the Board of Ordnance—Progress of the author’s invention—Captain Delvigne’s patent of 1842—Captain Minié’s bullet of 1847—Unsuccessful attempts of author to have his claim to the invention of the expansive bullet recognised by Government—Secret report of Select Committee on his invention—His priority admitted by the Emperor Napoleon—The British Government award the author 1,000l. for his invention—Principle of the expansive rifle bullet—Projectiles may be lengthened with increase of range—Action of the expansive bullet—Defects of the Minié bullet—Colonel Hay’s improvement—Author’s experiments, and their result—Spiral curve of the rifle barrel—Failure of the “Pritchett bullet”—Captain Tamissier’s theory—Minié and Greenerian bullet contrasted (with cuts)—Author’s improvement of 1852 (with cut)—General Jacob’s bullet (with cuts)—Remarks of Lieutenant Symons—The Whitworth rifle—Its defects—Report of trial of the Whitworth and Enfield rifles—Author’s comments thereon (with cuts)—Importance of safety from accident—The expansive bullet can be made superior to the Whitworth—Fallacy of experiments—Comparative cost of ammunition for the Whitworth and Enfield rifles—Defective cartridges—Hints to obviate defects—Vital principle of elongated projectiles—A hollow bullet proposed, its defects—The Swiss bullet—Doubtful utility of the deepening groove—Government rifle, with sword bayonet—Double rifles—Hints on rifle shooting—Author’s expanding screw bands—Mr. Prince’s breech-loading carbine—Revolving rifles—French school of rifle practice—English school of rifle shooting at Hythe—Double rifled carbines recommended—Revolvers costly and fragile—Lieutenant Kerr’s opinion of the Enfield or Greener’s carbine—Government pistol and carbine—Efficient arms of the Irregular Cavalry of India—First use of greased cartridges in India—The three-grooved and poly-grooved rifle (with cut)—Spherical bullets indispensable to smooth bored muskets—Length and bore of military rifle—Elliptical bored rifle—Mr. Lancaster’s bullet superseded by the Greenerian bullet—Report of committee on Lancaster’s rifle—The oval bore not a new invention—Inferiority of the two-grooved or Brunswick rifle—The Prussian needle gun—Enfield rifles made for France, Russia, and other states of Europe—Trials of Whitworth and Enfield rifles—Unsatisfactory results of the Whitworth rifle

338 Chapter X.—REVOLVING PISTOLS. Immense demand for them—Their value—Best manufacturers—Colonel Colt’s repeating pistol described—Its double action discussed—Machine-made pistols not equal to hand-made—Dean and Adams’s revolver described—Its improvements on Colt’s—Tranter’s double trigger revolver—His lubricating bullet and other improvements—Webley’s revolver—Comparison of self-acting and cocking-lock pistols—Tendency of revolvers to foul—Lieut. Symons’s opinion—Other defects to be overcome—Author’s preference for double-barrelled fire-arms in warfare 413 Chapter XI.—ENFIELD RIFLES. The name explained, and weapon described—Its origin—Author’s share in its construction—American machinery for gun-making—Extent and products of the Enfield manufactory 429 Chapter XII.—THE HARPOON-GUN FOR WHALE-SHOOTING. 432 Chapter XIII.—SHOT, CAPS, AND WADDING. 435

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RIFLES, CANNON,
AND
SPORTING ARMS.

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CHAPTER I.
ANCIENT ARMS.

From the earliest ages of the world, the jealousies and bickerings of mankind have been fruitful causes of war. Sometimes, perhaps, justified by political reasons; at others, it may be, arising solely from a desire, on the part of ambitious chiefs, to extend their territories by multiplying their conquests; while, in too many cases, the struggle for religious ascendancy has led to the most sanguinary and cruel battles.

War has been considered as a science from the most remote ages, and the ingenuity of the talented has successively been taxed to render it as perfect as possible. It is true—

but these soon gave place to others, more calculated to decide unequal, and often protracted, conflicts.

Arms, in a general sense, include all kinds of weapons, both offensive and defensive; and amongst the earliest may be classed the bow and arrow, as it gave facilities to man to capture the wild animals for food, probably before their use was required for the purposes of war. The bow and the sling were the first means invented, and next only to the human arm for projecting bodies with an offensive aim: the great principle which, to the present day, reigns unrivalled, developing the ruling passion of man to injure, while remaining himself in comparative safety,—“self-preservation” being “the first law of nature.”

To the bow and sling were soon added spears, swords, axes, and javelins, all of which appear to have been used by the Jews. David destroyed Goliath with a stone from the brook. The invention of the sling is attributed, by ancient writers, to the Phœnicians, or the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands. The great fame that these islanders obtained arose from their assiduity in its use; their children were not allowed to eat until they struck their food from the top of a pole with a stone from a sling. From the accounts left us (probably fabulous), it appears that the immense force with which a stone could be projected, can only be exceeded by modern gunnery. Even at that early age, leaden balls were in use as projectiles; though we cannot put much faith in Seneca’s account of the velocity being so great as frequently to melt the lead. The use of the sling continued over a long period of time, even as late as the Huguenot war in 1572.

The bow is of equal, if not greater, antiquity. The first account we find of it is in Genesis, 21st chapter and 20th verse, where the Lawgiver, speaking of Ishmael, says, “And God was with the lad, and he grew