NEW PIECE OF ORDNANCE.
We have been requested by Mr. Hobbs, whose new piece of ordnance we mentioned in the Spectator of September the 10th, to examine some further improvements which he has made in the method of connecting and disconnecting the sections of his gun, and in the deadly knife shot. Mr. Hobbs's previous method of connecting or disconnecting the sections of his gan met with some objection, on the ground that the required lever would touch the ceiling of the deck of a ship, or of any low building. He has now altered his lever from a long piece of iron with a handle at each end, and a square hole in the centre, to fit the piece of iron inserted in the bore of the gun to a piece of iron with a square hole in each end. By this means the lever can be put to any angle of the square piece of iron fitted*to the bore of the gun, without in any way interfering with ceilings or the decks of ships. With respect to the missiles, we tremble to think of their destructive quality. In the knife shot we mentioned the blades when free are`qt right angles to the sides of the shot. Mr. Hobbs has now so contrived the shot that the blades form acute angles to the sides of the shot, the base of the shot forming a buttress to the blades. In recent experiments at the Vatch Park, Chalfont, Bucks, the small eleven-inch gun with half-inch bore threw a patent hollow elongated shot 560 yards, and while the shot was on its passage—the ground being uneven—it com- pletely smashed large flint stones, and then indented to a considerable extent a wrought-iron target. The large model twenty-inch gun and one-inch bore, with half a charge of powder, threw shots right through a wooden target at more than 500 yards, perforating an ash stub through at a considerable distance in the rear of the target. Mr. Hobbs reckons from reports made by the country people of the whizzing of the shot, that the twenty-inch model gun would carry a shot two miles ; he there," fore declined to try any more experiments, because of the danger attend- ing them.
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