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difficulties. Let us therefore endeavour to adhere to the simple muzzle loading. Very well. Let us see, however, whether in a ship this is practicable. Take the 13½-inch gun, with only 25½ calibres of length, to include powder-chamber and all—a comparatively short gun. To sponge it out there must be some 30 feet of rammer. Obviously, if the gun were to be used as a broadside gun, it would need to be run in, until its breech would be touching the opposite side of even a wide ship. Well, what is to be done? Put the gun in a central turret, and load fore and aft? Yes, but where? the gun must fire over the upper deck: are the men to be on the upper deck exposed to the full fire of the enemy, while the ship and the turret are both armoured? That won't do. What is the remedy? Why, have two ports in the turret for each gun, one on the level above the upper deck for firing, the other on a level below that deck for loading, by depressing the muzzle of the gun. Well, having done this, and having resolved to face the difficulty of shoving the charge, up the inclined bore of a depressed gun, down which the charge is always tending to return—a tendency that may be aggravated by the rolling motion of the ship, and that must be resisted by the use of wads—even then there is not space for a full-length rammer, and further, the power of the men to force the enormous weight of projectile up the inclined bore is insufficient. What must be done? Why, make an hydraulic telescopic rammer, thus economising space and obtaining the desired power, while affording the protection of the armour to the men. Yes, with the possibility of not knowing how far the telescopic rammer is really projected (for it is invisible, being inside the gun), and that thus there may be placed on a charge which has failed to ignite, another charge, and that then the gun, being double loaded, may go off the next time and burst, as on one occasion really happened.
But there are other objections to the muzzle loading of rifled guns. The shot must have such an amount of clearance ("windage" over its body and over its projections which are to fit into the rifling) as will admit of its being readily introduced,
