breech-loaders only in the form of sporting guns and rifles, and argued
from them. The muzzle-loading thirty eight ton guns were fired in a
casemate at Shoeburyness repeatedly in less than twenty minutes for ten
rounds, with careful aiming. No breech-loader of corresponding size has,
I think, ever beaten that rate. With field-guns in the open, the No. 1
of the detachment can aim his muzzle loader while it is being loaded,
while he must wait to do so till loading at the breech is completed.
Again, it was freely stated that, with breech-loaders greater protection
was afforded to the gunners than with the muzzle-loaders. This entirely
depends on how the guns are mounted. If in siege works or _en
barbette_, it is much easier to load a muzzle loader under cover than a
breech-loader. But I need not traverse the old ground all over again. It
is sufficient for me to say here, that the real cause which has rendered
breech-loading an absolute necessity is the improvement which has been
made in the powder. You witnessed a few minutes ago the change which
took place in the action of fired gunpowder when the grains were
enlarged. You will readily understand that nearly the whole of a quick
burning charge was converted into gas before the shot had time to start;
suppose for the moment that the combustion was really instantaneous.
Then we have a bore, say sixteen diameters long, with the cartridge
occupying a length of, say, two diameters.

The pressure of the gas causes the shot to move. The greater the
pressure, the greater the impulse given. As the shot advances, the
pressure lessens; and it lessens in proportion to the distance the shot
proceeds. Thus, when the shot has proceeded a distance equal to the
length of the cartridge, the space occupied by the gas is doubled, and
its original pressure is halved. As the shot travels another cartridge
length, the space occupied by the gas is trebled, and its pressure will
be but one-third of the original amount. When the shot arrives at the