ed. The conical
ball question was thus once more doomed to oblivion.

In process of time the fabulous ranges of the "_Carabine a Tige_" were
heard of, and when it was ascertained that the French riflemen potted
the gunners on the ramparts of Rome with such rapidity that they could
not stand to their guns before a rifle nearly a mile distant, the cone
shape once more turned up, and Captain Minie came forward as the
champion of the old expanding ball. The toscin of war was sounded in the
East; the public were crying aloud for British arms to be put upon an
equality with those of foreign armies; the veterans who had earned their
laurels under poor old "Brown Bess" stuck faithfully to her in her
death-struggle, and dropped a tear over the triumph of new-fangled
notions.

In the middle of last century Lieutenant-General Parker's ball was
thrown aside; at the end of the century, Mr. Stanton's shared the same
fate; Mr. Greener's followed in 1836 with equal ill success; Captain
Minie's had a short reign, and was in turn superseded by the more solid
and superior ball now in use, and for which the country is indebted to
the experimental perseverance of Mr. Pritchett; and if ever things
obtain their right names, the weapon of the British army will be called
the Pritchett ball and not the Minie rifle; but as the world persists in
calling the Missouri the Mississippi, I suppose the British public will
behave equally shabbily by Mr. Pritchett. The reader will judge for
himself of the respective credit due to the various persons through
whose ingenuity we have at length succeeded in obtaining the present
efficient ball, the wounds from which are more frightful than pen can
portray.

There is, however, one lesson which we should learn from the great
opposition there has been to the introduction of the conical ball, and
that is, the advantage of remodelling the department to which such
inventions are referred. The foregoing remarks appear to me conclusive
evidence that the testing of fire-arms should not be left to age and
experience alone. Prejudice is all but inseparable from age--young and
fresh blood is a powerful auxiliary. What I would suggest is, that there
should be a special examination to qualify officers of the engineers and
artillery to sit in judgment on so important a subject as arms and
missiles; and I would then propose that two officers of the former
corps, and five of the latter, be selected from those below the ran