barrel consisting of two tubes of coiled iron one inside the other.
By the firing of a proof charge the wrought iron barrel was tightened
inside the cast iron casing. By this means we obtained a converted gun
at one-third of the cost of a new gun, and saved L140 on a 64-pounder
and L210 on an 80-pounder. The process of conversion involved no change
in the external shape of the gun, and it could, therefore, be replaced
upon the carriage and platform to which it formerly belonged. The
converted guns were placed upon wooden frigates and corvettes and upon
the land fronts of fortifications, and were adopted for the defense of
harbors. The many services Sir William Palliser had rendered to the
science of artillery secured him the Companionship of the Bath in 1868,
and knighthood in 1873. In 1874 he received a formal acknowledgment from
the Lords of the Admiralty of the efficiency of his armor bolts for
ironclad ships. His guns have been largely made in America and elsewhere
abroad; and in 1875 he received from the King of Italy the Cross of
Commander of the Crown of Italy. The youngest son of Lieutenant Colonel
Wray Palliser--Waterford Militia--he was born in Dublin in 1830, and was
therefore only fifty-two years of age. He was educated successively at
Rugby, at Trinity College, Dublin, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and,
finally passing through the Staff College at Sandhurst, he entered the
Rifle Brigade in 1855, and was transferred to the Eighteenth Hussars in
1858. He remained in the service to the end of 1871, when he retired by
the sale of his commission. At the general election of 1880, Sir William
Palliser was returned as a Conservative at the head of the poll for
Taunton. In the House of Commons Sir William gave his chief attention
to the scientific matters on which his authority was so generally
recognized. Under the many disappointments and "unkind cuts," which
fall to the lot of the most successful inventors, Sir William Palliser
displayed qualities that won hearty admiration. The confidence with
which he left his last well-known experiment to be carried out in his