A trial of the Maxi Automatic Gun took place on Tueeday forenoon on one of the ranges at the Arsenal, in presence of afew foreigners and Mr. Tang Ta-jin and other officials, The gun wasat first worked by Mr. Huber, who was in charge of it, and afterwards by a Chinese assistant who seemed to understand it thoroughly. It is a very simple weapon, and there is no doubt it is a very deadly one as it is capable of firing 600 shots per minute. On the 250 yards range, over which it was tried yesterday, no attempt to reach this quick firing was made, but when the gun was fired rapidly the reports came much nicker and had somewhat the sound of the large crackers of which the Chinese are so found. Close on seven hundred shots were fired, and at the end of the trial the mechanism was quite clean and cool. That part of the target of one inch pine on which the fire was directed was riddled, and some of the bullets through a Foochow pole five or six feet behind it, cracked it and buried themselves in the earth. There could be no doubt of the effect which the bullets would have on the human body. A regiment or a large body of men exposed to the rapid fire of a number of these guns would be mowed down, and as the range of the gun is eighteen hundred yards its efficiency either afloat or ashore must be very great. A description of the weapon says:—The Maxim Automatic Gun, with a single barrel, weighs but 421bs. and requires the service of only one man, to fire it with absolute safety over 600 tinies in one mi-note. The gun fires each cartridge in its own particular time; each cartridge enters the barrel, is struck and remains there until after the explosion has taken place. The explosion opens the breach, extracts the empty shell and introduces a new cartridge. The barrel is fed by a belt of cartridges. With the Gatling, or standard cartridge having a powder charge of 85 grains the amount of heat communicated to the barrel at each discharge is one and a half units, or sufficient to raise the temperature of 1b, of water 14 deg. F. The eating of the barrel is prevented by its being enclosed in a cylinder or water jacket in such a manner that the water has not only to be heated but also to be evaporated, and with the Maxim gun the water commences to boil when 600 rounds have been fired in rapid succession, and the amount of water after that for each thousand of cartridges fired is rather less than one and ahalfpints. Thesteamescapesautomatically. The Automatic Gun can be almost instantly used asa single hand operated gun in the same manner as a Winchester repeating rifle, as was done in the trials on Tuesday. The Chinese were greatly pleased with the trial,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.