or in this chair, Sir William Armstrong, made it the
subject of his inaugural address, and dealt with it in so masterly
and exhaustive a style as to render it absolutely impossible for me
to usefully add anything to his remarks. I cannot, however, leave this
branch of the subject without mentioning, not a piece of ordnance, but
a small arm, invented since the date of Sir William's address. I mean
the Maxim machine gun. This is not only one of the latest, but is
certainly one of the most ingenious pieces of mechanism that has been
devised. The single barrel fires the Martini-Henry ammunition; the
cartridges are placed in loops upon a belt, and when this belt is
introduced to the gun, and some five or six cartridges have been drawn
in by as many reciprocations of a handle, the gun is ready to commence
firing. After the first shot, which must be fired by the pulling of
a trigger in the ordinary way, the gun will automatically continue
to send out shot after shot, until the whole of the cartridges on the
belt are exhausted; and if care is taken before this happens to link
on to the tail of the first belt the head of a second one, and another
belt to this, and so on, the firing will be automatically continuous,
and at a rate anywhere between one shot per minute and six hundred
shots per minute, dependent on the will of the person in charge of the
gun, the whole of the operations of loading, firing, and ejecting the
cartridge being performed by the energy of the recoil. This perfectly
automatic action enables the man who works the gun to devote his whole
attention to directing it, and as it is carried on a pivot and can
be elevated and depressed, he can, while the gun is firing, aim the
bullets to any point he may choose.

Since 1862 the power of defending seaports has been added to by the
application of submarine mines, arranged to be fired by impact alone,
or to be fired on impact when (under electrical control) the firing
arrangement is set for the purpose, or to be fired electrically from
the shore by two persons stationed on cross-bearings, both of whom
must concur in the act of explosion. These mines are charged with
gun-cotton, the development of which owes so much to Sir Frederick
Abel, while for purposes of attack the same material, not yet in
practical use for shells, is taken as the charge for torpedoes, which
are either affixed to a spar or are carried in the head of a submerged
cigar-shaped body. By a compressed