Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century

The invention of gunpowder—or rather its use in war—appears at first sight a device little calculated to promote the general progress of mankind. But it has been pointed out by some historians that the introduction of gunpowder into Europe brought about the downfall of the feudal system with its attendant evils. In those days every man was practically a soldier: the bow or the sword he inherited from his father made him ready for the fray. But when cannons, muskets, and mines began to be used, the art of war became more difficult. The simple possession of arms did not render men soldiers, but a long special training was required. The greater cost of the new arms also contributed to change the arrangements of society. Standing armies were established, and war became the calling of only a small part of the inhabitants of a country, while the majority were left free to devote themselves to civil employments. Then the useful arts of life received more attention, inventions were multiplied, commerce began to be considered as honourable an avocation as war, letters were cultivated, and other foundations laid for modern science. If such have really been the indirect results of the invention of gunpowder, we shall hardly share the regret of the fine gentleman in “Henry IV.”: “That it was great pity, so it was, That villanous saltpetre should be digged Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed So cowardly.” We often hear people regretting that so much attention and ingenuity as are shown by the weapons of the present day should have been expended 170upon implements of destruction. It would not perhaps be difficult to show that if we must have wars, the more effective the implements of destruction, the shorter and more decisive will be the struggles, and the less the total loss of life, though occurring in a shorter time. Then, again, the exasperated and savage feelings evoked by the hand-to-hand fighting under the old system have less opportunity for their exercise in modern warfare, which more resembles a game of skill. But the wise and the good have in all ages looked forward to a time when sword and spear shall be everywhere finally superseded by the ploughshare and the reaping-hook, and the whole human race shall dwell together in amity. Until that happy time arrives— “Till the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furl’d In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world— When the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law,”— we may consider that the more costly and ingenious and complicated the implements of war become, the more certain will be the extension and the permanence of civilization. The great cost of such appliances as those we are about to describe, the ingenuity needed for their contrivance, the elaborate machinery required for their production, and the skill implied in their use, are such that these weapons can never be the arms of other than wealthy and intelligent nations. We know that in ancient times opulent and civilized communities could hardly defend themselves against poor and barbarous races. But the world cannot again witness such a spectacle as Rome presented when the savage hordes of Alaric swarmed through her gates, and the mighty civilization of centuries fell under the assaults of the northern barbarians. In our day it is the poor and barbarous tribes who are everywhere at the mercy of the wealthy and cultivated nations. The present age has been so remarkably fertile in warlike inventions, that it may truthfully be said that the progress made in fire-arms and war-ships within the second half of the nineteenth century surpasses everything that had been previously accomplished from the time gunpowder came into use. Englishmen have good reason to be proud of the position taken by their country, and may feel assured that her armaments will enable her to hold her own among the most advanced nations of the world. The subject of fire-arms embraces a very wide ground, as will appear if we consider the many different forms in which these weapons are constructed in order best to serve particular purposes. Pertaining to this subject, attention must also be directed to the modern projectiles and to the newer explosives that have largely taken the place of ordinary gunpowder. The shot gun, fowling-piece, and sporting rifle properly come under the head of fire-arms, and in the march of improvement these forms have most commonly been in advance of military muskets and rifles, the ingenuity bestowed on all their details being worthy of admiration. Nevertheless it is to the implements of war that general interest attaches; for on them depends so much the fate of battles and the destiny of nations, that whenever any country is engaged in war the question of arms becomes one of surpassing importance, enlisting the patriotic instincts of every citizen. Hence in the following pages our space will be devoted mainly to weapons of war, and more particularly to those that have been adopted by our own country. Everyone of course is aware that guns, cannon, and gunpowder are by no means inventions of the nineteenth century; but there are fewer 171acquainted with the fact that rifling, breech-loading, machine guns, and revolvers were all invented and tried hundreds of years before. The devices by which some of these ideas were sought to be realised in past ages appear to us in some instances very primitive, not to say childish, when compared with modern work: but it must be remembered that nearly all the appliances required for producing such weapons had themselves to wait for their invention until the nineteenth century; such, for instance, as the steam-hammer, powerful and accurate tools, refined measuring implements, material entirely reliable such as the new steel, and also scientific investigations of all the conditions involved. The military fire-arms are of so many different forms and patterns that we can deal here with but a selection from the various services. If a rough classification had to be made, the most obvious distinction would be between the weapons the soldier carries in his hands (small-arms) and those which are mounted on some kind of carriage and discharge projectiles of much greater weight (ordnance). Ordnance again includes guns mounted on forts, carried in ships, or taken with an army into the field, in each case coming into action under different conditions. Partaking somewhat of the nature of both field-guns and of small-arms are the machine guns, of which the French mitrailleur was the first example, afterwards developing into much more effective weapons in the hands of Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, Maxim, and Hotchkiss. As much will have to be said about rifling the bores of muskets and cannon, we may here explain the nature and object of this device. The projectiles used in all guns down to comparatively recent times were almost invariably of spherical form, and could indeed scarcely be otherwise with smooth-bore weapons. As the diameter of the shot would necessarily be something less than that of the bore of the barrel, a considerable loss of power would result from the escape of the powder gases between the shot and the barrel, which escape is known as windage. Another disadvantage of the spherical projectile is that for the same weight of metal the air offers a greater resistance to its passage, and consequently checks its speed more quickly than that of any other circular form; for the air resistance is proportional to the square of the diameter, and therefore if we take a ball of 1 in. diameter and a cylinder of 1 in. in length, each having the same weight of metal, the diameter of the cylindrical shot will be a little more than four-fifths of an inch, and the air resistance to the ball will be exactly half as much again as to the cylinder, that is, in the proportion of 3 to 2. Again, the passage of the spherical shot within the barrel of the gun will not be in a straight line, but in a series of rebounds from side to side, and its direction on leaving the muzzle will depend upon which part of the bore it just before impinges on, as from that it will also take a rotatory “twist” that will in part determine its path through the air. Now if an elongated projectile were fired from a smooth-bore gun, its course through the air would be erratic to a degree impossible to the spherical shot, for it would turn end over end with deviations that would make aiming impracticable. But if the elongated projectile is made to spin rapidly enough about its longitudinal axis, it flies through the air quite steadily, the axis of rotation remaining parallel to that of the gun throughout the whole flight. The steadiness due to rapid rotation has familiar examples in spinning tops, in gyroscopic tops, in the way arrows are feathered so that the air may cause them to revolve axially, and so 172on. The axial rotation of the projectile is effected by ploughing out in the cylindrical barrel of the gun a number of spiral or twisting grooves, which the projectile is compelled to follow as it travels along the barrel, either by means of corresponding protuberances formed upon its surface in the first instance, as in Jacob’s bullets, or by studs let into it, as in the studded shots and shells for ordnance which constituted at one time the regulation plan adopted by the British Government; or otherwise by making the force of the explosion expand some portion of the projectile in such a manner that this portion shall completely fill up the grooves, thus preventing windage, and causing the projectile to follow the twist of the grooves. This is the more general method, especially since the adoption of breech-loading. The Lancaster rifling, and that advocated by Whitworth, are the same in principle, but differ in appearance, from the section of the barrel being made in the one case oval, in the other hexagonal or polygonal, but with the twist necessary to produce rotation. Incident to the discharge of all fire-arms, great and small, is a phenomenon of which we have to speak, because it is one which in the mounting of heavy ordnance especially has to be taken into account. And as it also illustrates in a very direct way one of the most general laws of nature, while people often have very vague and erroneous ideas of its cause and operation, it deserves the reader’s attention. In gunnery it is called the recoil, and is familiar to anyone who has ever fired a pistol, fowling-piece, or rifle, in the kick backwards felt at the moment of the discharge. This law is in operation whenever the condition of a body in respect to its rest or motion is changing. That is, whenever a body at rest has motion given to, or if when already moving it is made to go faster or slower, or to stop, or when the direction of the motion is changed from that in a straight line. Now although these changes or actions are frequently occurring before our eyes, the operation in them of Newton’s third law of motion does not generally present itself to common observation. This third law was stated by Sir Isaac Newton thus:—“To every action there is always an opposite and equal reaction.” Now the expanding gases due to the gunpowder explosion press the bullet forwards and the barrel (with its attachments) backwards, with the same pressure in both cases, but at the end of the bullet’s passage along the bore the same velocity is not imparted to the two bodies, because the same pressure acting for the same time on bodies of unequal mass always produces velocities that are inversely proportional to the masses. The reader should try to acquire