on my principle, I determined at once to become
a manufacturer, and to prove that my system
was right. With respect to the rifle, it has
already been shown that it was so; and I think
it will soon be admitted that I was right with
regard to ordnance also." That question is
the great one yet to be determined, but pending
Mr. Whitworth's resolve, and the results which
he anticipates, he founded his rifled ordnance
manufactory at Manchester, and set to work
upon the construction of the existing
Whitworth gun, which, to be brief in our
description, is formed of a tube of one piece of
homogeneous iron, hooped by hydraulic pressure,
a muzzle or breech-loader uniform of bore, rifled
upon the principle already applied to small arms,
and fitted with elongated iron projectiles. How
this gun has answered was shown in the
experiments made on the Southport Sands in the
spring of I860, when its extreme accuracy and
wonderful range were tested,—the latter, it
must be observed, implying the former, a
principle laid down by the best artillerists. The
range, then, on this occasion, is stated as
follows:

"The smallest of the guns, a 3-pounder,
weighing only 208 Ibs., fired at an elevation of
35 deg., threw a shot to the distance of 9688
yards, or a little more than five miles and a half"
—an excess of 500 yards over the greatest
range ever reached by an Armstrong gun, though
a 32-pounder, and fired with 6 Ib. of powder at
the same angle. Yet even the remarkable
achievement of 1860 has been since exceeded
by Mr. Whitworth, his 12-pounder gun having
sent a ball 10,300 yards, a very little short of
six miles! It was clear after this extraordinary
result, that a renewed trial between the
Whitworth and Armstrong guns could no longer be
refused, and it was ordered to take place. Why
it never came off, arose from the nature of the
conditions, wholly unfavourable to Mr.
Whitworth, which the Ordnance Select Committee
sought to impose on him. Here the actual
Story of the Guns may be said to end, the issue
between the competitive weapons being as
yet undetermined, but the remainder of Sir
Emerson Tennent's book, which describes the
rise and progress of the iron navy, and its
capability of resisting the newly invented artillery,
is full of valuable and interesting matter.

What aspect the comparative experiments
which will shortly commence, are to wear, appears
in the following passage: "They will be
conducted, not by the usual Ordnance Committee,
composed exclusively of military and naval
officers, but by another specially named, with
whom two scientific civilians have been
associated, Mr. John Penn and Mr. Pole, the former
distinguished in the highest walks of his profession
as a mechanical engineer. The programme
of tests to which the guns are to be subjected
will doubtless include every point essential to
determine all questions of construction, velocity,
range, and precision; rapidity of firing, powers
of destruction, and length of endurance. The
issue of this important contest will be watched
by the public with profound and unwonted
interest—but the result, to whichever side victory
may incline, must not be permitted again to
close the gates against the honourable ambition
of other aspirants. Sir William Armstrong and
Mr. Whitworth are but two out of those clamouring
for admission; others in due course of time
will advance their pretensions, and whatever be
the result of the approaching trial, whether it
attest the superiority of the Armstrong gun, or
point to its supercession by the Whitworth, no
judgment, as between them, must preclude the
just claims of other rivals to an equally
dispassionate scrutiny." With respect to prolonged
competition, Sir Emerson Tennent closes his
admirable work with these remarks: "The
disinterred utensils of extinct races, the implements
discovered in the tumuli of Asia, and in the earth-
mounds of the Mississippi; even the instruments
found in the tombs of Etruria and Upper
Egypt, as well as in the dwellings and workshops
of Pompeii, exhibit combinations of mechanical
parts as effective for their objects as those
employed at the present time. There is no reason
why similar excellence should not be attainable
in ordnance; nor why science should not be so
successfully applied to the construction of large
guns as to render them, by a combination of
strength and simplicity, so nearly perfect as
practically to require no further improvement.
But till that point shall have been attained,
competition must remain open; and whatever be
the temporary inconveniences of change, the
abiding interests of the country will henceforth
require that the man who reaches the high
eminence of giving his name to the arms with
whose protection the nation reposes should hold
it by no other tenure than that of uncontested
superiority."

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," "Copperfleld! &c.
In MAY will be published, PART I., price 1s., of
A NEW WORK BY CHARLES DICKENS
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

On the 16th of February will be published, bound in
cloth, price 5s. 6d.,
THE TENTH VOLUME.