Their projectiles, too, were not effective, many bursting in the air or burying themselves in the ground without producing any effect, while the German percussion shells almost invariably exploded on touching the object. The striking superiority of the Prussian batteries with the Krupp breech-loaders was freely admitted by the French, and had a most important bearing upon the issue of the war. In this struggle the mitrailleuse or machine gun was introduced and extensively used by the French, in batteries of ten pieces each, and with most destructive effects. The weapon is on the same general principle as the Montigny mitrailleuse, which has 37 barrels fitted and soldered into a wrought-iron tube, with a movable breech piece worked by a lever, and so arranged that | the barrels can be fired simultaneously or at any interval, reloading taking five seconds, and ten discharges per minute being maintained if necessary. The Gatling mitrailleuse, adopted by the United States several years previously, has not been actually employed in war.

Several hundred new bronze breech-loading sevens were made in Paris during the siege and used with effect, and great attention has been paid since the war to the reorganization of the French batteries, it being intended to suppress the old muzzle-loading guns as soon as a definite breech-loading system can be determined upon. - The regimental organization of artillery, which has been always maintained by the French and other great European powers, was abolished in England in 1859, brigades of horse, field, and garrison artillery taking its place; each brigade consists of eight batteries, the terms troop and company being done away with. In 1862 the royal artillery was consolidated with that of the Indian army, the artillery establishment being then divided into 5 horse artillery brigades and 25 field and garrison brigades; it now consists of 6 horse, 8 field, 14 garrison, and 3 mixed brigades of field and garrison artillery; to these must be added one depot and one coast brigade. The Armstrong system was adopted in 1859, after the unsuccessful debut of the Lancaster guns in the Crimea, and up to 1864 nearly $13,000,000 were expended in its development.

Experience showed, however, that it was too complicated and would not stand the test of active service; the fermature of the breechloaders, 40, 20, 12, 9, and 6-pdrs., proved very defective, and the lighter calibres have been lately superseded by muzzle-loading rifles, 7, 9, and 16-pdrs., except in the horse batteries, where a few Armstrong guns are still retained. The heavier calibres, muzzle-loading 600, 300, 150, and 70-pdrs., have been replaced since 1867 by guns of the Frazer system; these new guns are .600, 400, 250, 180, and 115-pdrs., the corresponding calibres being 12, 10, 9, 8, and 7 inches; they are all rifled on the Woolwich system, the twist being uniform in the 7-inch, but increasing in the higher calibres; a 700-pdr. of 35 tons has been recently made, its calibre being 11 1/2- inches. The 64-pdr. muzzle-loading rifled gun is of various constructions, Armstrong, Frazer, and Palliser converted cast-iron, the last being rather heavier than the others. All the heavy guns fire the Palliser chilled shot, cast-iron projectiles with gun-metal studs, except in those common to the various 64-pdrs., which have copper studs. - During the past 20 years a number of different systems of rifled ordnance have been invented in England, the two most prominent being the Armstrong and Whitworth. Armstrong guns are both muzzle-loaders and breech-loaders, the fermature being only strong enough to apply to the smaller calibres.

The latter are made by welding together at the ends wrought-iron tubes, made of spiral cords formed by twisting a square bar around a mandrel and then welding; two additional thicknesses or tubes envelop it in rear of the trunnions to give it more strength, the outer of the same material as the inner, the inner one formed of an iron slab bent into a cylindrical shape and welded at the edges; the breech is closed by a vent piece slipped into a slot and held in its place by a breech screw, which presses against it from behind; the screw is tubular, so that the charge can be passed into the chamber when the vent piece is withdrawn; the vent is in the breech piece, which can be easily renewed when the former becomes enlarged. In the large muzzle-loading Armstrong guns the barrel or part surrounding the bore is made of solid steel tempered in oil, which diminishes brittleness and adds to the tenacity; the barrel in rear of the trunnions is enveloped by three layers of wrought-iron tubes, not welded together at the ends, but hooked to each other by a system of shoulders and recesses; the tube around the barrel opposite the seat of the charge is called the breech piece, and is not made of spiral bars like the others, but has its fibres and welds longitudinal so as to resist the recoil of the barrel against the head of the breech plug screwed into the breech piece.

The number of grooves in the breech-loaders is 34, and the twist one turn in 9 feet; in the muzzle-loaders the grooves are from 3 to 10, and the twist from one turn in 30 to one turn in 38 calibres. The muzzle-loading Armstrongs were formerly rifled upon the shunt system, in which the grooves are much wider than the buttons on the projectile, except near the bottom of the bore; that part or side of the groove passed over by the projectile in passing down the bore is deep enough to admit the buttons freely, while the other side is so shallow that the ends of the buttons are pressed against it as the projectile comes out, thereby forcing its centre or axis toward the axis of the bore. This system has altogether failed in calibres larger than the 9-inch, and was finally abandoned in 1870 even for small calibres. In 1805 the French soft-metal stud and bearing system of rilling was adopted for large muzzle-loading guns, under the name of the Woolwich system; after seven years1 trial it is not found to give general satisfaction, and will probably be changed.