its only office in this case is to summon up the internal forces already existing in the loaded rifle, and bring them into vigorous action, and that in virtue of these internal forces the explosion takes place.
The most prominent result of this explosion is the out-rush of the rifle ball with a velocity that may, perhaps, carry it for the best part of a mile before it comes to rest; and here it would seem to us, at first sight, that the law of equal action and reaction is certainly broken, for these internal forces present in the rifle have at least propelled part of the system, namely, the rifle ball, with a most enormous velocity in one direction.
14. But a little further reflection will bring to light another phenomenon besides the out-rush of the ball. It is well known to all sportsmen that when a fowling-piece is discharged, there is a kick or recoil of the piece itself against the shoulder of the sportsman, which he would rather get rid of, but which we most gladly welcome as the solution of our difficulty. In plain terms, while the ball is projected forwards, the rifle stock (if free to move) is at the same moment projected backwards. To fix our ideas, let us suppose that the rifle stock weighs 100 ounces, and the ball one ounce, and that the ball is projected forwards with the velocity of 1000 feet per second; then it is asserted, by the law of action and reaction, that the rifle stock is at the same time projected backwards with the velocity of 10 feet per second, so that the mass of the stock, multiplied by its velocity of
