legend of the poisoned
bullets which caused such a sensation for a short period amongst the
uninitiated. It is possible also that the additional layer of wax was
necessitated by the wearing of the barrel.

The wax employed for the Mauser bullets was not originally green. Mr.
Leslie B. Taylor informs me that it is probably paraffin wax, the green
colour depending on the formation of verdigris from the copper alloy
with which the steel envelopes are plated. This completely corresponds
with my own experience, since on the bullets in my possession the green
colour, originally pale, has steadily increased in depth. Many old
leaden bullets I found in the Boer arsenals were also waxed, but in this
case no alteration in colour had taken place. The Guedes bullets, which
are cased in mild steel, become somewhat brown with exposure from a
similar oxidation or rusting of the surface.

As far as my experience went, however, the steel casing has an important
surgical bearing beyond the mere question of wear and tear on the rifle
barrel. That it possesses elasticity and capability of bending is
obvious, and in a later chapter, devoted to irregular wounds, several
illustrations of such deformities are given; but when it strikes stone I
believe it splits and tears with very much greater freedom than the
cupro-nickel mantle of the Lee-Metford. At any rate, I never came across
Lee-Metford bullets deformed to the same degree as Mauser bullets,
either when removed from the body, or as ricochet projectiles on the
field of battle. For this reason, therefore, provided the fighting takes
place on stony ground, I believe the Mauser bullet and others ensheathed
in steel to be much more dangerous surgically than those encased in
cupro-nickel. I fancy this would be equally the case even if the mantles
were of exactly the same thickness.

The layer of copper alloy on the steel mantles is also a physical
characteristic worthy of mention. This very readily chips off in a
manner similar to that we are accustomed to see with nickel-plated
instruments. This may be due to the compression into the grooving of the
rifle, or as the result of passing impact of the bullet with an obstacle
previous to entering the body or contact with a bone within it. Small
scales of metal set free in one of these ways are seen in a very large
proportion of Mauser wounds, and although they are so small as usually
to be of little importance, the presence of such in, for inst