"Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath
been already of old time, which was before us."[18] This observation
of Solomon, the correctness of which we have often seen verified in
this History of Inventions, is applicable even to that great apparent
novelty the formidable "Revolver"--that death-dealing weapon, which
will fire six shots in rapid succession by merely pulling the trigger
so many times, as fast as it is possible.
The Revolver was almost unknown in this country until 1851, when it
was brought prominently into notice at the Great Exhibition, by the
specimens shown there by Colonel Colt, of the United States. Pistols
with six barrels, which might be fired successively with the same lock,
by turning them round, were, indeed, previously seen in gun-shops;
but their clumsy form and their great weight prevented them from
being used. Nor was Colonel Colt much more successful in his earlier
attempts to bring his Revolver into public notice. He obtained his
first patent in America in 1835, and established a manufactory for
the pistols at Paterson, United States, where he expended £35,000 in
attempting to bring the fire-arm to perfection, but with no beneficial
result to himself beyond gaining costly experience. He made further
improvements in 1849, and so far perfected the weapon that it had been
used extensively in America before it was brought into notice in this
country.
When Colonel Colt came to England, he undertook to investigate the
origin of repeating fire-arms, with a view to ascertain how far he had
been anticipated; and the result of his researches was, that repeating
fire-arms, similar in principle to his own Revolver, had been invented
_four centuries before_.
He found in the Armoury of the Tower of London a matchlock gun,
supposed to have been made as early as the fifteenth century, which
very closely resembles, in the principle of its construction, the
Revolver of the present day. It has a revolving breech with four
chambers, mounted on an axis fixed parallel to the barrel, and on
that axis it may be turned round, to bring any one of the four loaded
chambers in succession in a line with the barrel, to be discharged
through it. There are notches in a flange at the fore end of the
revolving breech to receive the end of a spring, which is fixed to the
stock of the gun, for the purpose of locking the breech when a chamber
is brought round into the proper position. The hammer is split at the
end, so as to clasp a match, and to carry its ignited end down to the
priming powder when the trigger is pulled. Each chamber is provided
with a priming pan that is covered by a swing lid, and, before firing,
the lid is pushed aside by the finger, to expose the priming powder to
the action of the lighted match. If the date of this gun be correctly
stated, a very rapid advance in the art of gunnery must have been made
after the invention of gunpowder, which took place only one hundred
years previously. The want of a better mode of discharging the gun than
a lighted match was one of the chief obstacles to the introduction of
the Revolver four centuries ago.
There is also in the Tower Armoury a specimen of a repeating fire-arm
of a more recent date, though still very ancient, that presents
considerable improvement on the preceding one. It has six chambers
in the rotating breech, and is furnished with a barytes lock and one
priming pan, to fire all the chambers. The priming pan is fitted with
a sliding cover, and a vertical wheel with a serrated edge projects
into it, nearly in contact with the powder in the pan. To this wheel a
rapid motion is given by means of a trigger-spring, acting upon a lever
attached to the axis of the wheel; and the teeth of the wheel strike
against the barytes, which is brought down, previously to firing, into
contact with it, and the sparks thus emitted set fire to the powder in
the priming pan, and discharge the piece. In this instance, also, the
breech is rotated by hand.
A still further advance towards perfection in repeating fire-arms is
to be seen in the United Service Museum, where there is a pistol,
supposed to have been made in the time of Charles I., with the breech
rotated by mechanical means. In this pistol, the act of pulling back
the hammer turns the breech, containing six chambers, one-sixth part
of a revolution, and the priming powder is ignited by a flint hammer
striking against steel.
The manufacture of these fire-arms presented some practical
difficulties which could only be overcome by great care and skill in
the construction; and from the failure in this respect they were not
patronized. It was necessary, in the first place, that the loaded
chambers should be brought into an exact line with the barrel, and be
firmly retained there during the discharge. It also required great
nicety in the fitting of the breech to the barrel, to prevent the fire
from communicating to the other chambers. A further difficulty was to
prevent the spindle, whereon the breech revolved, from becoming foul
by the explosion of the powder; otherwise, after firing a few times it
would stick fast, and the gun would become useless.
The earliest patent for repeating fire-arms in this country was
obtained by James Puckle, in 1718, for a gun with a rotating breech.
There were six chambers in the breech, which was turned round by a
winch, and, when the six were fired, there was an arrangement by
which the chambered breech could be removed, and another loaded one
substituted for it. Mr. Puckle appears to have been of a poetical
turn of mind, and the specification of his patent is enlivened by the
following loyal couplet, which deserves to be quoted as a novelty in
patent records:--
"Defending King George, our country and laws,
Is defending yourselves and the Protestant cause."
The invention of percussion priming in 1800, by the Rev. A. J. Forsyth,
was an important step towards the perfection of fire-arms generally,
and of Revolvers in particular; for until the chambered breech could
carry round with it in a compact form the priming for each chamber, the
construction must have been clumsy, and the action uncertain.
Colonel Colt, as already stated, took out his first patent in 1835,
and in 1849 he patented the improved Revolver, which he has brought
into general use. It has six chambers in the rotating breech, and the
nipples to hold the percussion caps are sunk into a recess, so that
the lateral fire, if any, cannot reach them; and at the other end, the
chambers are protected from lateral fire by chamfering their mouths. By
these means, the danger of firing the gunpowder in the other chambers
is effectually provided against.
The demand for Colt's Revolvers became so great after the last
improvements were made, that at his manufactory, at Hartford, in
America, he made 53,000 of them in 1853; and at his manufactory at
Vauxhall, near London, he employs upwards of 300 workmen, though by far
the largest portion of the work is done by machinery.
Several improvements have been introduced in Revolvers since Mr. Colt's
patent of 1849, among which is the arrangement, made by Mr. Adams in
1851, for causing the chambered breech to turn by the action of pulling
the trigger, which at the same time draws back the hammer. By this
arrangement, the whole of the six loaded chambers may be discharged in
three seconds, whilst the pistol continues presented.
The latest improvements in Revolvers were contrived by Mr. Josiah Ells,
of Pittsburg, North America, as specified in a patent obtained for him
by the author, in his own name, in 1855. The annexed woodcuts show the
figure of this Revolver, with the working parts round the lock exposed
to view, together with the shape of the revolving chambered breech.
[Illustration]
In this improved Revolver, the force required to pull back the hammer,
_a_, is regulated by a double spring, _w_, so as to diminish as the
hammer is drawn back; and at the moment of firing a slight pull of the
trigger is sufficient. Another improvement consists in the addition
to the chambered breech, _d_, of a projecting tube, which prevents
the spindle on which it turns from becoming foul; and there is also a
safety bolt added, as a protection against accidental firing.
The plan of making the mere action of drawing the trigger turn the
chambered breech and pull back the hammer, as originally contrived by
Mr. Adams, required so much force to pull the trigger as to interfere
materially with the accuracy of aim. There was danger, also, in that
mode of turning the chambered breech, arising from premature firing. In
Mr. Ells's Revolver these objections are in a great measure obviated;
first, by the action of the double spring, by which the force required
is diminished as the trigger is pulled farther back; and in the second
place, by making the shoulder of the hammer catch into a small notch,
which holds it at full cock, until, by a further pull of the trigger,
the pistol is fired.
An improvement in the art of war, no less important than the Revolver,
was introduced nearly at the same time. The Revolver affords a
formidable means for attack or defence at short distances, whilst the
Minié Rifle extends the destructive range of fire-arms far beyond the
distance to which the ordinary musket ball could reach. The principle
of rifling gun barrels was first made known in the specification of
an invention patented in 1789, by Mr. Wilkinson, the improvement he
effected being thus described:--"The gun, or piece of ordnance, after
being bored in the usual method, hath cut therein two spiral grooves,
which run the whole length of the bore. These curves, according to
their curvature, will give a circular motion to the shot during its
flight."
The spiral grooves, when the bullets are rammed down, cause the ball
to offer greater resistance, therefore the explosive force of the
gunpowder is brought to act upon them more completely before they leave
the gun barrel; and the rotary motion imparts greater steadiness to the
ball. Rifled barrels, therefore, carry the balls farther, and increase
the accuracy of the aim. They, however, require increased power and
longer time to ram down the ball in loading, and the risk of bursting
the gun is increased if the ball be not rammed close upon the powder.
For these reasons, they were considered unfit to be employed generally
by soldiers, and they were entrusted only to select corps of rifle
shooters. The object of Captain Minié's invention was to facilitate
the loading of rifles, by contriving a bullet which might be easily
rammed in, and would expand in the act of firing, so as to fill up the
grooves. What is commonly called the Minié Rifle is, in fact, only a
Minié Rifle Ball, for the barrels of the guns are nearly the same as
the ordinary grooved rifles.
The ball is an elongated one, with a hollow cone at the bottom, into
which is fixed an iron button. When the gun is fired, the button is
forced into the cone, and expands the lead, which thus fills up the
grooves and gives a spiral direction to the bullet. The Minié ball
serves the purpose excellently for a short time, but after firing
several rounds the iron button is forced through the lead, leaving a
portion of it behind, which clogs up the barrel, and renders it unfit
for use.
Several substitutes for iron were tried, to remove that inconvenience,
and it was at length found that the button might be dispensed with
altogether, for the hollow cone is of itself sufficient to expand
the lead. The balls are, therefore, now made in that manner at the
Government gun manufactory at Enfield, and the rifled guns now used in
the army, which carry bullets to the distance of a mile and more, are
called the _Enfield Rifle_. The cost of each of these rifles to the
Government is stated to be £3 4s. 7½d. As the balls are made to slip
into the barrels easily, they can be loaded as readily as the common
musket: and they will carry three times the distance, with much more
certainty.