has been successfully applied to all descriptions of firearms, and has produced a new and important industry—that of cartridge manufacture.
Its essential feature is the prevention of all escape of gas at the breech when the weapon is fired, by means of an expansive cartridge case containing its own means of ignition. Previous to this invention shot guns and sporting rifles were loaded by means of powder flasks and shot flasks, bullets, wads and copper caps, all carried separately. The earliest efficient modern cartridge case was the pin-fire, patented, according to some authorities, by Houiller, a Paris gunsmith, in 1847; and, according to others, by Lefaucheux, also a Paris gunsmith, in or about 1850. It consisted of thin weak shell made of brass and paper which expanded by the force of the explosion, fitted perfectly into the barrel, and thus formed an efficient gas check. A small percussion cap was placed in the middle of the base of the cartridge, and was exploded by means of a brass pin projecting from the side and struck by the hammer. This pin also afforded the means of extracting the cartridge case. This cartridge was introduced in England by Lang, of Cockspur Street, London, about 1855.
The central-fire cartridge was introduced into England in 1861 by Daw. It is said to have been the invention of Pottet of Paris, improved upon by Schneider, and gave rise to much litigation in respect of its patent rights. Daw was subsequently defeated in his control of the patents by Eley Bros. In this cartridge the cap in the centre of the cartridge base is detonated by a striker passing through the standing breech to the inner face, the cartridge case being withdrawn, or, in the most modern weapons, ejected by a sliding extractor fitted to the breech end of the barrel, which catches the rim of the base of the cartridge.
This is practically the modern cartridge case now in universal use. In the case of shot guns it has been gradually improved in small details. The cases are made either of paper of various qualities with brass bases, or entirely of thin brass. The wadding between powder and shot has been thickened and improved in quality; and the end of the cartridge case is now made to fit more perfectly into the breech chamber. These cartridges vary in size from 32 bore up to 4 bore for shoulder guns. They are also made as small as ·410 and ·360 gauge: their length varies from 134 in. to 4 in. Cartridges for punt guns are usually 112 in. in diameter and 934 in. in length.
In the case of military rifles the breech-loading cartridge case was first adopted in principle by the Prussians about 1841 in the needle-gun (q.v.) breech-loader. In this a conical bullet rested on a thick wad, behind which was the powder, the whole being enclosed in strong lubricated paper. The detonator was in the hinder surface of the wad, and fired by a needle driven forward from the breech, through the base of the cartridge and through the powder, by the action of a spiral spring set free by the pulling of the trigger.
In 1867 the British war office adopted the Eley-Boxer metallic central-fire cartridge case in the Enfield rifles, which were converted to breech-loaders on the Snider principle. This consisted of a block opening on a hinge, thus forming a false breech against which the cartridge rested. The detonating cap was in the base of the cartridge, and was exploded by a striker passing through the breech block. Other European powers adopted breech-loading military rifles from 1866 to 1868, with paper instead of metallic cartridge cases. The original Eley-Boxer cartridge case was made of thin coiled brass. Later the solid-drawn, central-fire cartridge case, made of one entire solid piece of tough hard metal, an alloy of copper, &c., with a solid head of thicker metal, has been generally substituted.
Central-fire cartridges with solid-drawn metallic cases containing their own means of ignition are now universally used in all modern varieties of military and sporting rifles and pistols. There is great variety in the length and diameter of cartridges for the different kinds and calibres of rifles and pistols. Those for military rifles vary from 2·2 in. to 2·25 in. in length, and from ·256 to ·315 gauge. For sporting rifles from 214 in. to 312 in. in length, and through numerous gauges from ·256 in. to ·600 in. For revolvers, pistols, rook and rabbit rifles, and for Morris tubes, cartridges vary from ·22 in. to ·301 in. in gauge. All miniature cartridges with light charges are made for breech adapters to enable ·303 military rifles to be used on miniature rifle ranges. All the above cartridges are central-fire. Rim-fire cartridges for rifles, revolvers and pistols vary from ·22 in. to ·56 in. gauge according to the weapon for which they are required. The cartridge for the British war office miniature rifle is ·22 calibre, with 5 grs. of powder and a bullet weighing 40 grs. Most modern military rifles are supplied with clip or charger loading arrangements, whereby the magazine is filled with the required number of cartridges in one motion. A clip is simply a case of cartridges which is dropped into the magazine; a charger is a strip of metal holding the bases of the cartridges, and is placed over the magazine, the cartridges being pressed out into the latter. Both clips and chargers, being consumable stores, may be considered as ammunition. (H. S.-K.)
AMNESTY (from the Gr. ἀμνηστία, oblivion), an act of grace by which the supreme power in a state restores those who may have been guilty of any offence against it to the position of innocent persons. It includes more than pardon, inasmuch as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the offence. Amnesties, which may be granted by the crown alone, or by act of parliament, were formerly usual on coronations and similar occasions, but are chiefly exercised towards associations of political criminals, and are sometimes granted absolutely, though more frequently there are certain specified exceptions. Thus, in the case of the earliest recorded amnesty, that of Thrasybulus at Athens, the thirty tyrants and a few others were expressly excluded from its operation; and the amnesty proclaimed on the restoration of Charles II. did not extend to those who had taken part in the execution of his father. Other celebrated amnesties are that proclaimed by Napoleon on the 13th of March 1815, from which thirteen eminent persons, including Talleyrand, were excepted; the Prussian amnesty of the 10th of August 1840; the general amnesty proclaimed by the emperor Francis Joseph of Austria in 1857; the general amnesty granted by President Johnson after the Civil War in 1868; and the French amnesty of 1905. The last act of amnesty passed in Great Britain was that of 1747, which proclaimed a pardon to those who had taken part in the second Jacobite rebellion.
AMOEBA, the Greek equivalent of the name “Amibe” given by Bery St Vincent to the Proteus animalcule of earlier naturalists, used as a quasi-popular term for any simple naked protist the sole external organs of which are pseudopodia, i.e. temporary outgrowths of the clearer outer layer of the soft protoplasmic body. It is also used as a generic name, and in its present limitations by E. Penard includes only those the pseudopodia of which are constantly changing, blunt outgrowths. In the former wider sense, amoebae are found in sluggish waters, fresh and salt, all over the world; they readily make their appearance in infusions putrefying after infection from aerially carried germs, and the leucocytes or colourless blood corpuscles of Metazoa are essentially amoebae in their structure and behaviour. The protoplasm of the individual is divided into a centrally placed body, the nucleus, of relatively stable shape, and the cytoplasm, itself divided into an outer, clearer ectoplasm (“ectosarc”) and an inner, more granular endoplasm (“endosarc”), passing into one another. The movements of amoebae are of several kinds. (1) The amoeba may grow out irregularly into blunt lobes, the pseudopodia, some being emitted while others are retracted, and so may advance in any direction by the emission of pseudopodia thitherward, and the enlargement of these by the passage of the organism into them. (2) Again, it may advance by a sort of rolling: the lower surface, or that in contact with the substratum over or under which it is passing, is viscid and adheres to the substratum, the superficial dorsal layer passing forward and bending over to the ventral side; whilst the converse action takes place at the hinder end; (3) or again, the pseudopodia, when long, well marked and relatively permanent, may serve as actual limbs on which the body is supported and on which it moves. In the outgrowth of a pseudopod the process may take
