The United service - v. 1 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PNEUMATIC GUN AND DYNAMITE CRUISER. At intervals the pneumatic or dynamite gun has attracted attention, and we have had short accounts of it, at times, in the... more » various periodicals. These accounts have been meagre, and usually described some special experiments. In the following I have brought together the points given in these separate paragraphs, and have added a few observations. The success of the preliminary experiments with the pneumatic gun induced Congress to give it a trial afloat, and we have, in consequence, the dynamite cruiser or gunboat, which will soon be completed and ready for service. For a long time the naval officer and ordnance officer have seen the advantage, and studied the problem, of accurately projecting a large quantity of high explosive to a distance. The development of the high explosives, nitro-glycerine, dynamite, or explosive gelatine, has only been going on since 1850, and their present worth is due more to the civil and mining engineer than to the artillerist. Inventors have met with a satisfactory amount of success in projecting a large quantity of explosive by means of auto-mobile torpedoes, but this method is very expensive, whether successful or not. Many military men have devoted their energies to trying to find a solution of the problem by, in some manner, throwing a heavy charge in a shell from powder guns. An unfortunate property of all high explosives is that they are extremely sensitive, and it takes very little to put them in their most violent mood. A slight concussion or sudden jar is sufficient to cause an explosion and develop the great energy of the high explosive. Powder burns very quickly, develops a large amount of gas in a very short time, and hence produces a very sudden and heavy pressure on the shell. This sudden and hea...« less