Twenty-ninth Lecture.—(3.) Comparison of the flint and the percussion musket. Voltigeur’s, dragoon’s, and double-barreled musket. Gendarmerie and cavalry carbine. Cavalry and gendarmerie pistol. Arms in which precision of aim is studied. Means employed to prevent the deviations caused by the windage of the projectiles and their rotatory-movement in the air. Diminution and suppression of the windage; straight grooves in the barrel, spiral grooves, rifled arms. Rotation of the ball about its axis of flight.
Principles of arrangement of rifled arms. Charge of powder and inclination of the grooves; two modes of solution, powerful charge and long spiral, weak charge and short spiral. Length of the barrel: conditions which determine it; number and form of the grooves.
Thirtieth Lecture.—(4.) Loading of rifled arms; ramming the ball home; loading at the breech. Different methods tried. Loading with a flattened ball; effect of the flattening of the ball. Examination of the successive improvements to which this idea has served as a basis. Chambered arms; use of the short bottom and the patch. Arms à tige. Elongation of the ball; shortening of the spiral groove; diminution of the charge: advantages resulting from it. Pointed cylindrical ball; principles of its outline; effect of the notches of the ball; superiority of this projectile over the spherical balls. Summary examination of the different models of rifled arms which have been successively in use. Versailles rifles.
Wall-piece, pattern 1831. Common rifle, pattern 1842. Wall-piece, pattern 1840. Bored-up wall-piece, pattern 1842. Pistols for officers of cavalry and gendarmerie. Rifles à tige, pattern 1846, and artillery carbine à tige. Description of these two arms. Superiority of the rifle à tige over the arms for precise aim previously adopted. Trial relating to a new improvement in the construction of rifled arms. Disuse of the “tige.” Ball with cup. Comparative notice of the fire-arms of the different European powers.
SECOND SECTION.—PROJECTILES AND CANNON.
Thirty-first Lecture.—(5.) Principles of construction of projectiles.
Considerations on the substances which may be chosen for the manufacture of projectiles. Essential conditions, density, hardness, tenacity, cheapness. Projectiles of stone, lead, cast-iron, iron, copper, gun-metal. Forms of projectiles.
Exterior form; conditions which serve to determine it. The spherical form preferable to any other in the actual state of artillery. Advantage of elongated projectiles. Conditions relating to their use. First attempts. Interior form of hollow projectiles; howitzer shells, bombs, and grenades. Thickness of the metal; fuse-hole; charging-hole of naval hollow projectiles; lugs or handles of shells. Density of projectiles. Recapitulation of the balls; howitzer shells; shells and grenades in use, their nomenclature, dimensions, weight. Cannon-balls. Choice of metal and weights. Different arrangements for the use of shot, case-shot, canister or naval grape-shot. Spherical case; conditions relating to their use. Charge of spherical case. Bar-shot. Rescue shells.
Thirty-second Lecture.—(6.) Cannon. Historical ideas on the subject. Principle of arrangement of ancient arms and machines of war. Motive force employed; its inferiority compared to that furnished by the combustion of powder. Earliest cannon.
Historical view of the different systems of ordnance which have been successively in use in France.