to

to the number of centimeters of calibre, or, when this was an uneven
number, to the number plus one. I have called these grooves, although
properly speaking they were ribs, this name for the projections being
certainly more definite than the literal translation of the French term,
"rayures saillantes," or projecting grooves. These ribs were equal-
ly spaced with square edges, the rib and bore being connected by an
arc of small radius. The twist was increasing. The projectile was fur-
nished with two belts, the forward one being of the diameter across the
ribs and simply serving to hold the nose of the projectile in place, the
rear one was of the diameter of the bore, the ribs cutting into it and
giving the twist to the shot. These belts were made of brass and dove-
tailed into the shot. This, then, is the gun as fully developed up
the present time. It will be noticed that throughout the course of
this development, the French held fast to a cast-iron body for the gun.
They had two good reasons for it. First, there were no manufacturers
in France who could produce steel of a proper quality in the required
large masses and it would have been to the last degree impolitic to trust
to foreign manufacturers. Again, throughout the whole course they,
seemed to have an eye to the conversion of all their great stock of
heavy smooth bores, which in a measure accounts for the careful nurs-
ing of the cast-iron. Here is a point that may well be soberly consid-
ered by those officers who sneer at the idea of doctoring up smooth
bores. If such you meet, you may well cite to them the example of
France, who is to-day contending for supremacy in ordnance power
making new guns of cast-iron and still using effectively her old con-
verted ones.
I will here mention that the cast-iron system is not the
final one of the French. Steel is their metal and they are now slowly
introducing steel heavy guns, built I believe on the Vavasseur plan of
hooping. This change cannot be called completed yet, however, as the
steel is not considered fully enough worked up for the heavy calibres.
Another point of interest is the tenacity with which they clung to the
mechanical fitting projectile, doctoring studs and grooves and working
against great odds until the minds of experimenters were fairly forced
out of the rut they had been traveling in, when at once comes the radical
change to the compression system. To sum up the French develop-
ment then, that of the gun may be divided into five periods: 1st. that
of the old smooth bore converted into a rifle by cutting two grooves
in the bore, then the application of hoops to the outside, then the
change from muzzle to breech loaders, then the introduction of the
steel tube and finally the change now in progress, to an all steel gun.

With the rifling; we have first the regular and then the increasing twist. With the grooves; first the similar sided curve and two grooves, then the bluff fronted followed by the anse de pannier groove, the change to three and afterward to five grooves, and finally the multigroove system for the compressing projectile. With the studs; first cast iron in one with the body, then zinc reinforced by cast iron, then ziuc alone, then the plaque isolante, then the button for breech-loading, then the brass snug fitting stud, and finally the belt.

I will now consider the English development. Before entering on this part of the lecture I wish to emphasize the point, that in France, while following the same system in the main, the army and the navy worked independently of each other, each one building its own guns. In England matters are managed differently. The navy at first had nothing to do with the guns. They were designed, manufactured and even put aboard ships by the army. Finally, after Commander Scott and a few other naval officers had patiently labored until the war office was obliged to take some notice of them, the navy was allowed to suggest what it thought proper for its armament; but beyond that it has not been allowed to go; as witness a request of the admiralty to the war office for a gun that shall pierce twenty inches of iron at one thousand yards. Their request was acceded to, and the army are now making the final experiments with the navy eighty-one ton gun. I sincerely hope that American naval officers may always be given credit for being able to do their own work, and I might add that I hope that they will see to it that the credit is not misplaced.

We cannot with the English rifle as with the French, enter at once into the discussion of naval guns. Whether rifles were used aboard ship during the Crimean war or not I am unable to state but I think not; the first bona fide English rifle, however, used in service was the Lancaster gun, so named from the system of rifling proposed by the inventor Mr. Lancaster. The first of these guns tried at Shoeburyness was an eight inch cast-iron gun strengthened at the chase and muzzle with wrought iron hoops, the bore being oval in section. It stood the test quite well and a number of eight inch and sixty-eight pounders were immediately rifled but not strengthened and sent to the front. It had been found that cast-iron projectiles would invariably break up in the bore as there was no twist in their shape to correspond to that of the bore nor could there be since it was an increasing twist. Wroughtiron projectiles were, therefore, supplied. This type of gun almost completely failed, as the gun invariably broke up at the forward part of

i.

the chase. They were used, however, and quite effectively after the chase had been blown away as howitzers in the parallels before Sebastopol. Mr. Lancaster afterward changed the twist of his rifling to a regular one and altered the shape of the projectile, but his system was never able to contend with the others presented. About the time of the introduction of the Lancaster gun Mr. Armstrong presented his system of breech-loaders. These guns were found good in every respect as field pieces and were formally adopted into service in 1858, Mr. Armstrong being shortly afterward knighted and appointed Superintendent of the Royal Gun factories. In order to follow up the development more clearly I will consider the changes in the different portions of the gun separately, commencing with the development of the groove. As before stated Lancaster's groove or rather oval bore with an increasing twist proved a failure, and the next in order is Armstrong's style of multigroove for compressing projectile. As submitted in his early patterns, this groove was saw-toothed in shape, the driving side being radial to the centre of the bore and the loading side curved off. The number of grooves varied with the caliber of the gun from thirty-six to seventy-six and had a regular twist. This system of grooves for the Armstrong breech loader has never been changed. In 1863 an Ordnance Special Committee was appointed to decide upon the respective merits of the Armstrong and Whitworth systems. In this contest three styles of grooves were presented. Whitworth's was hexagonal, a form with which you are no doubt all acquainted since it is one of the distinct features of his gun, differing from that of any other gun in the world. Armstrong's grooves were, the one just described, and the shunt groove for muzzle-loaders; an ingenious arrangement for centering shots. This groove was a double one, the driving half being shallower than the loading, gradually growing into the latter towards the seat of the projectile. The projectile being inserted into the muzzle with the studs. in the loading side went home quite easily, being shunted off to the driving side by a slight cant of the loading side at the bottom of the bore. As in coming out it constantly met the driving side it gradually rose up into the shallower part where it was firmly pinched and centered. The result of the contest was in favor of the Armstrong systems, that is the breech-loader with the multigroove and regular twist, with lead coated projectiles for the light guns and the muzzle-loader with shunt grooves, regular twist and soft metal studs for the heavier. Both of these patterns were introduced at once into the navy. The shunt groove was found objectionable in the following points.

It was complex, requiring great care in cutting. The projectile met with a sudden increase of resistance which endangered the life of the gun at its weakest part, near the muzzle, aud the studs tended to override the grooves thus making the accuracy uncertain. As at this time the government had decided to adopt muzzle loaders for the heavy calibres, it became necessary amongst other things to find a suitable groove. Guns rifled on different principles were submitted to a competitive test. The most prominent of these systems were the Lancaster, Whitworth, Armstrong, Scott, Britten and French anse de pannier. I will here remark that of the ten or a dozen systems submitted but one was due to the genius of a British officer, that of Commander Scott of the Royal navy. His groove came very near winning in the contest and met with unqualified praise. It was a centering groove, constructed on scientific principles and certainly accomplished all that was demanded of it. The system submitted by Britten was suspiciously like our own Parrott rifling, being equally spaced rectangular rifling intended for a projectile with an expanding base-ring. It was condemned on account of the liability of the base-ring to fly to pieces. The contest resulted in favor of the Scott and French systems, Whitworth's being inseparable from his gun. Of the two successful grooves a compromise seems to have been made resulting in the Woolwich groove, which dif fers but slightly from the French navy groove. This is the groove as it stands to-day for all muzzle-loaders in the English service save the old Armstrong shunt guns which are still in use although none are manufactured. With regard to the pitch of the rifling, Armstrong had always used a regular twist but when the French groove was adopted the increasing twist seems to have been taken with it. Later, however, a return was made to the regular twist for all guns below a calibre of seven inches, above that the twist is increasing in order to distribute the strain better along the bore. I will now turn for a moment to the projectile. The segment shell, familiar to you all, was of Armstrong's invention and intended simply to present solidity enough for impact with breaking up power enough to serve also as shrapnel. The outer coating of lead of this projectile was about 1-10 of an inch in thickness, into which the grooves or fine teeth of the rifling cut. This shell was only used with the breech-loader. For the shunt groove a double row of gun-metal studs was used. Studs are of course necessary with the Woolwich groove and since the twist is increasing for the heavier calibres, the rear studs served simply as bearings for the rear of the projectile, while the front studs gave the spin to the shot. For a long time great

trouble was experienced with the action of the projectile. No doubt all of you have often read the discussions on the wobbling of the shot, and the battering of the bottom of the bore. Steel tubes were found to crack and become used up much faster than their strength seemed to warrant, and for a long time the excuse of poor steel was made; but evidently this excuse would not answer, for two reasons. First they used the best steel in the world and then the tubes always split in the same place. The true reason was this. Owing to the increasing twist, the rows of studs had to be quite close to each other to prevent the rear ones from overriding the loading side of the groove, so that the projectile was almost hung by its middle. It will be remembered that the French found difficulty with their single row of studs, in the shot breaking up through wobbling and they prevented it by adopting the "plaque isolante." Just why the English did not do the same thing long ago, I do not know, unless it was through obstinacy of the artillery officers who would not give up their plea of weak steel. However, they were all the time seeking a remedy not for the steel, but for the projectile and finally found it in adopting what they call a copper gas check, that is, a copper disc is bolted to the base of the projectile, which, if the projectile tends to thump, acts as a soft fender while being expanded by the explosion it stops up the windage ring and steadies the base of the projectile. This is the condition of the projectile at present, and if my opinion can be considered worth anything I should say that at least with the calibers below twelve inches it would be better to drop their mechanical fit projectiles and adopt the expanding base-ring on our system, instead of making a compromise between the two. If their copper gas-check can give the spin to their projectiles, and it certainly ought to if properly applied, the studs are useless. In 1867, Major Palliser introduced the chilled headed projectile which only differs from others in having the head chilled in a cast iron mould thus making it very hard. This is the present style of armor punching shot. I will now go back to the development of the gun. I mentioned that after the failure of the Lancaster gun, the Armstrong pattern was adopted. This gun was made up of a steel tube strengthened by wrought-iron coils. The merit of strengthing guns by hooping, in England, belongs to Captain Blakely, from whom I think that there is little doubt that Armstrong took his first ideas. They had a long controversy over the matter which was never definitely settled. There is this much, however, in favor of Armstrong, that his hoops were the first coiled ones introduced in England, and I think that the idea