Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1893 — Ancient and Modern Guns. [ARTICLE]

Ancient and Modern Guns.

An engineer, after visiting the caravel Santa Maria, remarked that the little gnns of that vessel were silent witnesses as to the limited advanoe in the scienoe of ordinance, but bore potent testimony of the advance in the mechanic art. “Here,” said the engineer, “is a built up, breech loading gun; it has a central tube, on which jackets are shrunk (or forged) in short seotions; at the joints between these sections there are other iron bands, tightly shrunk. The breech block, which is chambered, contains the cartridge; it is held in place by a key or wedge. This gun is certified to be a sac simile of those actually used by Columbus on board the Santa Maria. “The difference between this gun and those now being built, and about which we read such interesting accounts, is in magnitude, not in principle. The molecular strain in a forging or casting of great size led to the abandonment of cast guns and the adoption of built-up guns in our generation. It seems evident that as the cupolas advanced in size and the moulder’s art progressed, the cast guns of large size became practicable; but with the increased internal pressures demanded the castings reached their limit, and built-up guns became essential. ■ * The gun of to-day is composed of a central tube, on which are shrunk ‘ hoops ’in shorter sections. Its breechblock is held in place by a slotted screw, which is but another form of the wedge, being a circular inclined plane. “The difference between the guns of Columbus’s ships and those of our day is due almost exclusively to the mechanic arts; to the steam engine as the power; furnaces and cupalos, the hammers and the lathes as the tools, and to the brawny sons of toil who work these machines. The advance has been gradual, and is wrought by mechanios and draughtsmen, and the claim that gunnery or that ordinance belongs to the occult science pales before tne scrutiny of common sense observation.”—[Scientific American.