ardness. Still,
it is a formidable gun, especially when relieved of the weak and complex
breech-loading apparatus, and used with a better system of rifling and
projectiles than Armstrong's. The 110-pounder Armstrong rifle has 99-1/2
inches length and 7 inches diameter of bore, 27 inches maximum diameter,
and weighs 4-1/3 tons. The "300-pounder" smooth-bore has 11 feet length
and 10-1/2 inches diameter of bore, 38 inches maximum diameter, and
weighs 10-1/2 tons. The Mersey Iron-Works guns are of wrought-iron, and
are forged solid like steamboat-shafts, or hollow by laying up staves
into the form of a barrel and welding layers of curved plates upon
them until the whole mass is united. But few of these guns have
been fabricated. The most remarkable of them are, 1st, the Horsfall
smooth-bore, of 13 inches bore, 44 inches maximum diameter, and 24
tons weight,--price, $12,500; 2d, the "Alfred" rifle, in the recent
Exhibition, of 10 inches bore,--price, $5,000; 3d, the 12-inch
smooth-bore in the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, which, though very light, has
fired a double 224-pound shot with 45 pounds of powder: if properly
hooped, it would make the most formidable gun in America. Blakely has
constructed for Russia two 13-inch smooth-bore guns, 15 feet long and 47
inches maximum diameter, of cast-iron hooped with steel: price, $10,000
each. He has also fabricated many others of large calibre, on the
principles before mentioned. The 15-inch Rodman smooth-bore cast-iron
gun is of 48 inches maximum diameter, 15 feet 10 inches long, and weighs
25 tons. The cost of such guns is about $6,000. The Dahlgren 15-inch
guns on the Monitors are about four feet shorter.

_Results of Heavy Ordnance_. The 10-1/2-inch Armstrong gun sent a round
150-pound shot, with 50 pounds of powder, through a 5-1/2-inch solid
plate and its 9-inch teak backing and 5/8-inch iron lining, at 200
yards, and one out of four shots with the same charge through the
Warrior target, namely, a 4-1/2-inch solid plate, 18-inch backing, and
5/8-inch lining. The Horsfall 13-inch gun sent a round 270-pound shot,
with 74 pounds of powder, entirely through the Warrior target at 200
yards, making an irregular hole about 2 feet in diameter. The same
charge at 800 yards did not make a clean breach. The Whitworth
shell burst in the backing of the same target has been referred to.
Experiments on the effect of the 15-inch gun are now in progress. Its
hollow 375-pound shot (3-inch walls) was bro