upon ships. The mere bursting of a shell near a ship is not necessarily attended with serious consequences; but the great point to be achieved would be the explosion at the very moment of the contact. The explosion of so large a quantity of gunpowder upon or within a ship's timbers would be productive of an effect so easy to understand, that it need not be described. This consummation is scarcely likely when shells with fuses are employed, seeing that the very force of concussion has a tendency to extinguish the fuse, to say nothing of the chances in favor of a shell's bursting before it arrives in dangerous propinquity to the ship.

All attempts to apply the percussion principle to shells have, so far as relates to artillery, been futile. If the problem of rifling the bore of cannon, however, was solved, there would be no difficulty in the case; for these projectiles, as a matter of curiosity, have been frequently shot from rifled small arms, and have exploded on striking their object with almost unfailing certainty.

Having described the ordinary shell, it might seem natural that we should proceed at once to the shrapnell; but certain reasons, the nature of which will be presently evident, induce us to preface that description with some notice of canister-shot. Has the reader ever seen a tin case of preserved provisions? No doubt he has; and he will therefore be at no loss to understand the nature of a canister-shot. Instead of a mere case of tin plate, let him imagine one of sheet iron; instead of dainty provisions, let him fancy the case stuffed full of small iron balls, something larger than musket-balls; and he will then have a good notion of canister-shot.

Now, the sheet iron canister, although quite strong enough to withstand all the knocks, bumps, and other disturbing contingencies of transport, is by no means strong enough to withstand the explosive force of gunpowder; hence, no sooner is it discharged from a cannon, than its walls, splitting asunder, liberate the bullets, which are then scattered just like a charge of small-shot. The devastating effect of this projectile may be readily imagined; but its range is insignificant. Perhaps a distance of 300 yards may be considered the most effective. Many of us have doubtless heard the assertion made, that a musket will kill a man when fired at the distance of a mile; nor, perhaps, is the assertion incorrect, if we make one trifling proviso-namely, that the man aimed at be hit. But the effective range of a musket is scarcely more than a hundred yards; that is to say, if a musket

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properly charged, screwed in a vice for the purpose of maintaining its exact line of aim, pointed at a target about a yard square, and a hundred yards distant, be fired many times in succession, the target will be invariably hit, although not by any means in the same spot. At a distance of six hundred or seven hundred yards, the bullet might be deflected to the extent of a hundred yards in any direction; and at the distance of a mile, its deflection would be so great as to go beyond calculation. Nothing like accuracy of aim, we repeat, can be depended upon with the musket, beyond a distance of a hundred yards. From a consideration of this circumstance, it follows that artillerymen, with comparative impunity, may discharge canister-shot against a platoon of musket-armed infantry. The Minié rifle, however, and, indeed, many other varieties of rifle, are capable of hitting a mark at eight hundred yards' distance, and even more, with greater certainty than a musket at a hundred yards; and therefore, long before a piece of artillery could be brought up within canisterrange, its horses or gunners would be crippled or killed, and the gun thus rendered ineffective. Hence it follows, that since the introduction of the Minió rifle, the advantages of canistershot are far less than they formerly were under the old musket system.

We are now prepared to enter upon the consideration of shrapnell-shells, or spherical case-shot. Let the reader picture to himself a common bomb shell, not filled with gunpowder alone, but with a mixture of gunpowder and bullets; as many of the latter being first inserted as the shell will hold, and gunpowder thrown in afterwards until all the interstices are filled up. Let him furthermore imagine an instrument of this description to be supplied with a fuse, and he will have a true notion of the terrible shrapnell-shell, or spherical case-shot. From a consideration of the various parts of which this missile is composed, he will see that, being discharged from a cannon, it first travels like a common round - shot; but a certain range having been described, and the burning fuse having ignited the gunpowder within, it will burst in pieces, with all the effect of a canister-shot. The shrapnell, then, admits of being regarded as a canistershot intended to take effect at a very long range; and the greatest nicety is requisite in apportioning the effective length of the fuse to that distance. In practice, this apportionment is affected by means of a "fuse augur" or borer, which scoops out determinate lengths of the composition. The

effective range of such shells is very great: they will do good execution at 1000 or 1400 yards, and are highly dangerous at still greater distances; thus, as it would seem, conferring on artillery a preponderating advantage over the Minié rifle. Still, we must not conceal the fact, that the question as to this comparison is still open. The Minié rifle has scarcely been tried in the open field of war. During the progress of the siege of Rome, it did good execution against artillery; the Chasseurs de Vincennes, armed with the Minié rifle, having kept up such a destructive fire against the Roman embrasures, that the artillerymen could not stand to their guns. In the open field, it is argued by the opponents of the Minié rifle, cannon

would have the advantage, inasmuch as the latter, instead of being stationary, and thus affording a constant mark for the sharpshooters, would be constantly altering their distance, and thus disturbing the aim of the enemy. No doubt, the remark has much truth in it but how much, only actual practice in the field can determine. The fact, however, is certain, that the general introduction of Minié and other long-range rifles, will rob canister-shot of much of its terrors; indeed, some experienced men urge the total abandonment of the latter in favor of shrapnell-shells, the fuses of which can now be regulated with such accuracy, that their explosion at any given distance, compatible with their range,may be absolutely depended upon.

A VISIT TO A CORK FACTORY.--To those of our readers who may be engaged in manufactures of various kinds which call in the aid of steam machinery, it may not be uninteresting to present a brief descriptive sketch of the mode in which slices or sheets of the cork-bark are turned into bottle-corks and bungs. A sheet of cork is placed on an iron table, in which revolves a circular knife, by which all "knobs and excrescences" are pared off. Parallel with the knife, and at a distance from it regulated by the size of the cork required, is a little gauge, or edge. Pushing the cork against the edge of the knife, and passing it between the knife and the guage, the sheet is speedily cut up into long strips. One boy can cut up in this way half a ton of cork in a day. By a similar process these slips are cut into little parallelograms, the length of the cork required. A lad, at 18. per day, turns out eighty gross, or 11,500 per diem, while the most experienced workman, by hand-labor, could hardly do half as much within the same period, although he would charge five or six times the money for his labor. These parallelograms are then taken to another machine. The boy places one on a lever, holding it there with his hand; the lever, hand, and cork are carried up to an iron table; two "holders" now seize the square piece of cork exactly in its centre, and it begins to revolve;

the hand and lever return. Now there comes along, horizontally, a fearfully large knife-a yard in length-which catches the parallelogram of cork on the side as it is turning round to its edge. It will easily be seen that the square is thus cut into an ordinary bottle - cork; and we may remark, also, as a curious fact, that out of 10,000 of these parallelograms, a round cork would, in every individual case, be cut of the very largest dimensions mathematically possible; and not only so, but the entire 10,000 would be, in the strictest mathematical sense of the word, of precisely the same size and circumference. Moreover, all are perfectly circular, which cannot possibly be the case with corks cut by hand. As the knife recedes, the holders drop the perfect cork into one basket, and the shavings into another, and the knife, by an ingenious process, is made to sharpen itself. self. This is a great advantage; for the hand-cutters lose much time in sharpening their knives; it being a fact, that hardly any substance so soon takes off the edge as cork. From sixteen to twenty-five corks can be, and are, cut in a minute; and there are children of from twelve to fourteen years of age who make at the rate of seventy gross a-day. By a similar machine, though somewhat more complicated in construction, bungs are cut, both round and tapering, at one operation.— Leisure Hour.