The greatest feat yet on record in the department of
gunnery was achieved last week. We look on now in the frame of mind of the tadpole when his tail dropped off, simply remarking, " What next ?" and preparing for anything. On Thursday, the 10th, at Shoeburyness, Sir W. Armstrong's 600-pounder muzzle- loading shunt gun was tried against a plate eleven inches thick. Three rounds were fired, the first two with ninety pounds of powder and cast-iron shot of 300 pounds weight, for the purpose of ascertaining the exact elevation. These were fired at the side of the plate. Then a 3441b. steel round shot was fired against the plate, which it drove back a foot, shivering the 2-inch oaken wooden supports to splinters against Mr. Fairbairn's target, and then breaking the plate itself into four or five pieces. The steel shot itself was unbroken. The initial velocity of the steel shot was proved to be 1,706 feet per second, and on impact 1,586 feet. No injury whatever was done to the gun by the trial. It has been thus established that steel round shot can be fired from a rifled gun with a heavy charge of powder without injury to the grooves—another and important step forwards in the science of artillery.
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