GUN, a fire-arm, or weapon of offence, which forcibly discharges a bullet through a cylindrical barrel by means of gunpowder. The term is chiefly applied to cannon.
Somnerus derives gun from [mangon], a warlike machine, which was used before the invention of guns. He establishes his derivation by taking away the first syllable.
Curricle GUNS are small pieces of ordnance, mounted upon carriages of two wheels, and drawn by two horses. The artillery-man is seated on a box, and the whole can be moved forward into action with astonishing rapidity. The tumbrils belonging to curricle guns carry 60 rounds of ball cartridges. Great improvements are daily making in this machine on account of its acknowleged utility.
Great Gun. See [Cannon].
| Evening Gun, | - | |
| Morning Gun |
is generally a 6 or 12-pounder, which is fired every night about sun-set, and every morning at sun-rise, to give notice to the drums and trumpets of the army, to beat and sound the retreat and the reveille.
Morning and evening, and other signal guns, by the United States regulations, are not to be fired from larger calibres than 6 or 12 pounders; which calibres are seldom mounted on permanent works.
Gun-fire. The time at which the morning or evening gun is fired.
Gun-boat, a boat which is generally used to form a kind of floating battery, to cover the landing of troops.
| GUNNEL, or | - | |
| GUNWALE, |