We have not yet spoken of the machine guns. These weapons are, as part of the regular equipment of armies, quite modern, though the idea of binding together a quantity of barrels and then discharging them at once, or with great rapidity one after another, is not altogether novel. Sometimes, instead of a number of barrels, one only is required, and the cartridges are discharged from short barrels or chambers which are brought in turn into position with the longer one. This is the ordinary revolver system; but modern machine guns are a great improvement on this method, and entirely dispense with the necessity of loading separate chambers. Machine guns have succeeded one another with extraordinary rapidity, and a gun seems only to be adopted in order to be superseded. Thus we have had during the last few years a series of these weapons bearing the names of Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, and Maxim, described on a later page.
Nordenfelt-Palmcrantz Gun mounted on Ship's Bulwark.
As we walk about the factory we see, besides the workmen, here and there groups of men in military uniform. These are armourer sergeants, who attend classes at which they are taught the mysterious mechanism of the breech-loaders and machine guns. In former days, Tommy Atkins could be instructed how to keep his weapon in order, lock and all; but now its complications are beyond the power of his understanding or of his fingers, perhaps of both, and he has to hand over his rifle to a more skilled superior when it is out of order. Truly, military matters, from the movement of the vast army corps of the present day down to the mechanism of the soldier's weapons, have become a highly technical matter.
LORD ARMSTRONG AND THE ELSWICK WORKS.
Sir W. G. Armstrong, the chairman and founder of this great firm of warship builders and makers of big guns at Elswick, Newcastle-on-Tyne, is the son of a Cumberland yeoman, and born at Newcastle in 1810. He early showed a turn for mechanical contrivances, and delicate youth as he was, when confined to the house he was quite happy making toys of old spinning-wheels and such-like things. He would also spend hours in a joiner's shop, copying the joiner's work, and making miniature engines. He had ample opportunity in his father's house of making himself acquainted with chemistry, electricity, and mechanics. In spite of his turn for mechanics, he was articled to a solicitor, who, at the finish of his apprenticeship, made him his partner. In his leisure hours he conducted his experiments. Fishing was also a favourite pastime with him, and in 1836, while rambling through Dent Dale, he saw a stream descending from a great height and driving only one single mill. This led him to think that there might be a more economical use of this water hydraulically, with the result that he produced a hydraulic engine, which was followed by the invention of a hydraulic crane for raising weights at harbours and in warehouses. It was soon adopted at the Albert Dock, Liverpool, and elsewhere.
LORD ARMSTRONG.
Next he invented an apparatus for extracting electricity from steam, afterwards introduced into the Polytechnic Institution, London. Napoleon III. heard of this famous machine, and sent experts to examine it. Armstrong began to receive recognition; he was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1846, and a year later, aided by some friends, he began on a small scale the Elswick Engine-works in the suburbs of Newcastle, which have grown to be the largest concern of the kind in the country. At first the enterprise chiefly consisted in the manufacture of hydraulic cranes, engines, accumulators, and bridges.