The official committee that presided over these experiments has again
found in this new boat decided advantages, and has pointed out to its
inventor a few slight modifications that will render it still more
efficient.--_La Nature._

* * * * *




EXPERIMENTS WITH DOUBLE-BARRELED GUNS AND RIFLES.


The series of experiments we are about to describe has recently been
made by Mr. Horatio Phillips, a practical gun maker of London. The
results will no doubt prove of interest to those concerned in the use
or manufacture of firearms.

The reason that the two barrels of a shot gun or rifle will, if put
together parallel, throw their charges in diverging lines has never
yet been satisfactorily accounted for, although many plausible and
ingenious theories have been advanced for the purpose. The natural
supposition would be that this divergence resulted from the axes of
the barrels not being in the same vertical plane as the center line of
the stock. That this is not the true explanation of the fact, the
following experiment would tend to prove.

[Illustration: EXPERIMENTS WITH DOUBLE-BARRELLED GUNS.]