Tennent J.E. The Story of the Guns

Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1864. - 384 p.A rare and unusually thoughtful volume on the relationship of weapons, politics, and industry.James Emerson Tennent (1804-1869) was an Irish politician and traveller. He took part in the war for the liberation of Greece, where he made the acquaintance of Lord Byron. In 1831 he was called to the English Bar, and in June of the same year married the heiress of a wealthy Belfast banker, whose name and arms he assumed. He was a friend of both Charles Dickens and Dickens's biographer John Forster, and the last completed novel of Dickens 'Our Mutual Friend' was dedicated to Tennent.The Rifled Musket
Early patents for fire-arms
Waste of ammunition in former wars
Lord Hardinge's measures for improving the rifled musket
Mr. Whitworth's first idea of a rifled cannon
Rifled Ordnance
The Queen fires the Whitworth rifle at Wimbledon in 1860
Comparative cost of the Whitworth and Enfield muskets
Effect of the invention of gunpowder on the skill of the soldier
Efficacy of the rifled musket fatal to the ascendancy of artillery
The Armstrong gun
Advantages and disadvantages of breech-loading
The Iron Navy
Alarm felt for wooden ships from rifled guns
Various shells in use in the navy
Iron ships attempted in America in 1846
France constructs iron-clad gun-boats
The Whitworth shells penetrate armour-plate
France suspends the building of iron ships
Proposal to return to the old smooth-bore gun for the navy
A Whitworth 70-pounder sends shell through four inches of ironA perfect gun not unattainable