A competitor to the Gatling presents itself in the Belgian mitrailleur, the Montigny, Fig. 105_d_. This gun, like the Gatling, is made of several different sizes, the smallest containing nineteen barrels and the largest thirty-seven. The barrels are all fitted into a wrought iron tube, which thus constitutes the compound barrel of the weapon. At the breech end of this barrel is the movable portion and the mechanism by which it is worked. The movable portion consists mainly of a short metallic cylinder of about the same diameter as the compound barrel, and this is pierced with a number of holes which correspond exactly with the position of the gun-barrels, of which they would form so many prolongations. In each of the holes or tubes a steel piston works freely; and when its front end is made even with the front surface of the short cylinder, a spiral spring, which is also contained in each of the tubes, is compressed. The short cylinder moves as a whole backwards and forwards in the direction of the axis of the piece, the movement being given by a lever to the shorter arm of which the movable piece is attached. When the gun is to be loaded this piece is drawn backwards by raising the lever, when the spiral springs are relieved from compression, and the heads of the pistons press lightly against a flat steel plate in front of them. The withdrawal of the breech-block gives space for a steel plate, bored with holes corresponding to the barrels, to be slid down vertically; and this plate holds in each hole a cartridge, the head of each cartridge being, when the plate has dropped into its position, exactly opposite to the barrel, into which it is thrust, when the movable breech-block is made to advance. The anterior face of this breech-block is formed of a plate containing a number of holes again corresponding to the barrels, and in each hole is a little short rod of metal, which has in front a projecting point that can be made to protrude through a _small_ aperture in the front of the plate, the said small apertures exactly agreeing in position with the centres of the barrels, and being the only perforations in the front of the plate. The back of the plate has also openings through which the heads of the pistons can pass, and by hitting the little pieces, or strikers, cause their points to pass out through the apertures in front of the plate, and enter the base of the cartridges, where _fulminate_ is placed. The plate filled with cartridges has a bevelled edge, and the points of the strikers are pushed back by it as it descends. The heads of the pistons are separated until the moment of discharge from the recesses containing the strikers by the flat steel plate or shutter already mentioned. The effect, therefore, of pushing the breech-block forward is to ram the cartridges into the barrels, and at the same time the spiral springs are compressed, and the heads of the pistons press against the steel shutter which separates them from the strikers, so