took place suddenly on February 4, 1882. Sir William had been suffering
from disease of the heart for a considerable period, but we believe that
no one anticipated that the end was so near. For some twenty years Sir
William had devoted himself to the improvement of guns, projectiles,
and armor. To him is attributed the invention of the chilled-headed
projectiles which are known by his name. There seems to be no doubt that
chilled projectiles were suggested at Woolwich Arsenal, and even made,
before Sir William took the matter up, but there is excellent reason to
believe that Sir William knew nothing of this, and that the invention
was original with him; at all events, he, aided by the efforts of the
foundry and the laboratory at Woolwich, brought these projectiles to
perfection, and unless steel-faced armor defeat them they cannot be
said to have as yet met their match. A most valuable invention of the
deceased officer was the cut-down screw bolt for securing armor plates
to ships and ports. It was at one time feared that no fastening could be
got for armor plates, as on the impact of a shot the heads or the nuts
always flew off the bolts. The fracture usually took place just at the
point where the screw-thread terminated. Sir William adopted the bold
course of actually weakening the bolt in the middle of its length by
turning it down, so that the screw stands raised up instead of being cut
into the bolt, and by this simple device he changed the whole face of
affairs, and the expedient applied in other ways, such as by drilling
holes longitudinally down bolts, has since been extensively adopted
where great immunity from fracture is required.

It is, however, for the well-known converted gun that Sir William
Palliser's name will be best remembered. When our smooth-bore cast iron
guns became obsolete they were converted into the rifled compound guns
by a process which led to their being known as Palliser guns. The plan
was to bore out a cast iron gun and then to insert a wrought iron rifled