a lot of powder to a fort, more than a fleet could carry, and fire
it; but it does mean that history shows that forts have rarely
been called upon to fire much powder, that their lives have been
serene, and that most of the powder fired on shore has been fired
by infantry using muskets--though a good deal has been fired by
field and siege artillery.

Leaving forts out of consideration and searching for something
else in which to use gunpowder on a large scale, we come to
siege-pieces, field-pieces, and muskets. Disregarding siege-pieces
and field-pieces, for the reason that the great variety of types
makes it difficult to compare them with navy guns, we come to muskets.

Now the musket is an extremely formidable weapon, and has, perhaps,
been the greatest single contributor to the victory of civilization
over barbarism, and order over anarchy, that has ever existed up to
the present time. But the enormous advances in engineering, including
ordnance, during the last fifty years, have reduced enormously the
relative value of the musket. Remembering that energy, or the ability
to do work, is expressed by the formula: E=1/2 MV^2, remembering
that the projectile of the modern 12-inch gun starts at about 2,900
f. s. velocity and weighs 867 pounds, while the bullet of a musket
weighs only 150 grains and starts with a velocity of 2,700 feet
per second, we see that the energy of the 12-inch projectile is
about 47,000 times that of the bullet on leaving the muzzle. But
after the bullet has gone, say 5,000 yards, its energy has fallen
to zero, while the energy of the 12-inch projectile is nearly the
same as when it started.

While it would be truthful, therefore, to say that the energy of