Powder for bursting, do. -- 28 28 with all the small articles which usually attend mortars on every service, and the articles necessary for the service of carronades at sea. Laboratory chests, 4 ft. -- 2 2 Laboratory chests, 3 ft. -- 2 2 Handpumps for wetting the rigging, &c. 6 -- 6 Leather buckets 24 -- 24 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BOMB _Tender_, a small vessel of war laden with ammunition for the bomb-ketch, and from which the latter is constantly supplied. BOMBARD, an ancient piece of ordnance, so called, very short, and very thick, with an uncommon large bore. There have been bombards which have thrown a ball or shell of 300 weight: they made use of cranes to load them. The Turks use some of them at present. _To_ BOMBARD, BOMBARDING, BOMBARDMENT, the act of assaulting a city or fortress, by throwing shells into it in order to set fire to and ruin the houses, churches, magazines, &c. and to do other mischief. As one of the effects of the shell results from its weight, it is never discharged as a ball from a cannon, that is, by pointing it at a certain object: but the mortars are fixed at an elevation of or about 45 degrees; that is, inclined so many degrees from the horizon, that the shell describes a curve, called the military projectile: hence a mortar, whose trunnions are placed at the breech, can have no point-blank range. Mortars should be so contrived, that they may be elevated to any degree required, as much preferable to those fixed at an angle of 45°; because shells should never be thrown at that angle but in one single case only, which seldom happens; that is, when the battery is so far off, that they cannot otherwise reach the works: for when shells are thrown from the trenches into the works of a fortification, or from the town into the trenches, they should have as little elevation as possible, in order to roll along, and not bury themselves; whereby the damage they do, and the terror they cause to the troops, is much greater than if they sink into the ground. On the contrary, when shells are thrown upon magazines, or any other buildings, with an intention to destroy them, the mortar should be elevated as high as possible, that the shells may acquire a greater force in their fall.