It is nearly twelve months ago that we gavan account of the above establishment, and we are glad to learn that the progress we then observed has greatly increased, Our remarks at that time were more particularly directed to the department for the manufacture of heavy ordnance, and it is to some peculiarly interesting facts connected with the same department that we now have to call attention. At the time when wars and password in China and elsewhere, any rumours of wars have become almost the
formation relating to military preparations is specially desirable. It cannot therefore fail to be of great interest to know that a ies of most important experiments has just been completed at Block-house Shoal gum manufactured at the Kiangnan Arsenal Island with a 40-pounder muzzle-leadin,
This gun is composed of steel and wrought iron, and is built upon the Armstrong system by superimposing coils of wrought iron upon steel—the steel forming the inner part or barrel of the gun. Seventeen of these guns having been completed ready fur service, the authorities of the Arsenal, before forwarding them to their respective destinations, considered it imperative to test one of them in the severest manner possible especially as these are the first guns of the kind made in China. With this view, one of the guns was selected, and it was proposed to test it with service charges up to eight hundred ora thousand rounds. Afterwards, as long as the gun should prove capable of enduring, it was resolved to increase the charges until it should burst. This plan—although a very costly one—was a most judicious step for the mandarins to take, because there are four very important points to be settled by such an experiment.
First:—That they should have confidence in the materials of which the guns are composed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.