FOULING. 35
EFFECTS OF GUNPOWDER ON METALS. 35
MISCELLANEOUS EXPERIMENTS. 36
ON THE TIME REQUIRED FOR IGNITION OF GUNPOWDER. 38
EFFECTS OF ACCIDENTAL EXPLOSIONS OF GUNPOWDER. 38
ON ANCIENT ENGINES OF WAR. 39
THE SLING. 43
THE BOW. 44
MERITS OF THE LONG BOW. 45
Our Forefathers encouraged to acquire skill in archery by legal
enactments, and by the founders of our public schools. 47
1ST. BY LEGAL ENACTMENTS. 47
2ND.—BY THE FOUNDERS OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 48
MEANS BY WHICH SKILL IN ARCHERY WAS ACQUIRED. 49
PROOFS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF ARCHERY. 52
MILITARY AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF SKILL IN THE USE OF THE
BOW. 53
THE ARBALEST, OR CROSS-BOW. 54
DESCRIPTION OF CROSS-BOW. 57
COMPARATIVE MERITS OF THE LONG AND CROSS BOW. 59
COMPARATIVE MERITS BETWEEN BOWS AND EARLY FIRE-ARMS. 59
HISTORY OF ARTILLERY. 62
ETYMOLOGIES. 72
HISTORY OF PORTABLE FIRE-ARMS. 73
THE BAYONET. 83
ACCOUTREMENTS AND AMMUNITION. 84
HISTORY OF THE RIFLE. 86
RIFLED BREECH-LOADERS. 92
ON RIFLING. 95
ON THE NUMBER, FORM &c., &c., &c., OF THE GROOVES. 96
ON RIFLE PROJECTILES. 101
CONCLUSION. 108
THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES. 110
DEFINITIONS. 110
MOTION OF A PROJECTILE. 111
GRAVITY. 113
ON THE TIME TAKEN TO DRAW A BALL TO THE GROUND BY THE FORCE OF
GRAVITY. 114
ATMOSPHERE. 115
RESULT OF THE AIR’S RESISTANCE. 115
EXPERIMENTS IN FRANCE. 116
ON THE EFFECT OF THE RESISTANCE OF THE AIR UPON THE MOTION OF
A PROJECTILE. 117
ON THE RESISTANCE OF A FLUID TO A BODY IN MOTION. 117
ON THE VELOCITY WITH WHICH AIR WILL RUSH INTO A VACUUM. 118
UPON THE RESISTANCE OF THE AIR TO BODIES OF DIFFERENT FORMS. 119
RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS WITH SLOW MOTIONS. 119
RESISTANCE OF THE AIR, AS AFFECTED BY THE WEIGHT OF PROJECTILES. 121
DEVIATIONS OF PROJECTILES FROM SMOOTH-BORED GUNS. 121
1st CAUSE, WINDAGE. 121
2nd CAUSE, ROTATION. 122
CASES BEARING UPON THE FOREGOING THEORY. 122
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ROBINS’ THEORY OF ROTATION. 124
ON ECCENTRIC PROJECTILES. 124
Original Table of Contents
Transcriber’s Notes
The original language has been retained, including inconsistencies and
errors in spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, etc., except as
mentioned below.
Depending on the hard- and software used and their settings, not all
elements may display as intended.
Table of Contents: as present in the source document. The reason for
the order of entries is not clear, and some chapters are not listed,
nor are the sections. The structure of the text has been determined
based on what seemed the most logical interpretation of (the lay-out
of) the chapter and section headings in the text. The Extended Table
of Contents in the back of the book has been created for this text on
the basis of this assumed structure.
The text refers to the plates by both Roman and Arabic numbers. This
has not been standardised. The numbering of the actual plates has been
standardised.
Page 29, great inconvenience ... quite preclude: as printed in the
source document.
Page 29 and 35 (and Errata), sulphite and sulphide: as printed in the
source document.
Page 30 and 31, calculations: as printed in the source document.
Page 44, Slings were used in 1572, at the siege of Sancere by the
Huguenots, in order to save their powder: there should be a comma
after Sancere, the Huguenots were the besieged party.
Page 47, Our forefathers ... public schools: considered to be a
section heading.
Page 66, both the king’s feed men: other sources mention Peter Bawd
and Peter Vancollen / Van Collen as freed men.
Page 107, weight of bullet, ·530 grains: as printed in the source
document, but unlikely to be correct.
Page 114, paragraph on Parabolic theory: even with the corrections
mentioned in the errata, some of the reference letters are missing; F,
G and H are presumably the ends of the vertical lines through C, D and
E respectively.
Page 119, strictly empirical formula: should probably have been a
plural.
Changes made:
Sidenotes have been moved to directly before, footnotes have been
moved to directly after the paragraph to which they refer.
Some minor obvious punctuation and typographical errors have been
corrected silently.
B.C./B. C. and A.D./A. D. have been standardised to B. C. and A. D.,
respectively. Minie, Miniè (the spelling used most commonly in this
book) and Minié have been standardised to Minié.
The (corrected, see below) Errata have already been applied to the
text.
Errata: Page 32, para. 6, line 10 changed to Page 32, para.7, line 10;
IX and XII changed to ix and xii; Page 84, para. 2, line 1 (2nd entry)
changed to Page 84, para. 3, line 1. Subalterns changed to subaltern
officers; Page 91, para. 5 changed to Page 91, para. 4; sign changed
to sine.
Page 4: Poganatus changed to Pogonatus as elsewhere
Page 5: Talavara changed to Talavera
Page 21: frustrum changed to frustum
Page 30: 3490 changed to 3940
Page 32, sidenote: Robert changed to Piobert (as in text and Errata)
Page 35: deliquescient changed to deliquescent
Page 38: dull read heat changed to dull red heat
Page 52: closing quote mark inserted after Shooting-fields
Page 54: yeoman or archers changed to yeomen or archers
Page 61: opening quote mark inserted before Report of the Rifle Match
Page 65: opening quote marks inserted before Musée
Page 74, sidenote: 1491 changed to 1471
Page 86, Bàle changed to Bâle
Page 88, sidenote: Carabine a Tige changed to Carabine à Tige
Page 105: cups divers shapes changed to cups of divers shapes
Page 115: Plate 21, fig. 2 changed to Plate 22, fig. 2
Plate 18: opening quote marks inserted before Moolik.