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test had been applied to the 6-inch gun to which I have alluded, that, so long as the entrance to the cell was covered by the sound skin, the tube would not have failed under the test, even although it would not have had the external reinforcement, as it had when it burst.
I have called your attention to some of the difficulties attendant upon the successful manufacture of a Big Gun, to attain the desired end of powerful and good shooting. I wish time admitted of my speaking to you on the subject of the difficulties of judging the pressure prevailing in different localities in the gun, how that it can only be done by so filling the gun with gauges, or with wires for the chronoscope as to render it useless for service; or, if probably the best mode of all be used, by actually cutting the gun to pieces, taking off successive lengths, and recording the corresponding muzzle velocities of the projectile.
I wish I could have spoken, as I had intended, on the subject of wave pressure, and of the results arising from it, and that I could have gone into the question connected with this and with the other important subject, the sustaining a considerable pressure along the bore of the gun, including the nature of the powder; that I could have spoken to you about the mode, and the place of the ignition of the powder, of the means that are employed for this end, and of the precautions taken. Further, I should have been glad to say something about shells and their fuzes, and something about gun carriages; about the means for dealing with recoil, and the means of working big guns. Time will not admit of any of this being done, and I must occupy that which remains with other matters relating to the gun question—matters that, as members of a nation that wishes to be able to defend itself from the covetousness of other nations, you feel, and justly feel, are of vital importance.
You are probably saying to yourselves, we see frequent statements from persons, whom we presume to be of repute, that no proper progress is made in English guns; that they are behind those of other nations; that they are less trust-
