Although it was not until the latter part of the seventeenth, or the beginning of the eighteenth century, that gun manufactories were established in this kingdom, yet we have attained to a degree of perfection and excellence unequalled by any other nation in the world. Birmingham is the emporium of the world for guns, from the most inferior--the “_park paling_,” so called, of the slave-trade, with which ships might yet be freighted at the cost of eight shillings and sixpence each--up to the elaborately-finished gun of the peer. Most of the alterations which have been made in gun-locks in England, have been with a view to simplify the machinery, and obtain the greatest quickness in firing: much complication has been discarded; a thorough conviction having seated itself in the minds of Englishmen, that to attain perfection, simplicity must be combined. Many splendid emanations of genius are left to us, consisting of complex mechanism for gunnery. The most perfect we have ever seen, is a pistol made in Spain about the end of the seventeenth century. By moving a lever towards the butt-end, while the muzzle is depressed, the lock is primed, half-cocked, and the hammer shut down; return the lever, the powder is in the breech, and the ball before it. We have seen it fire twenty-six shots without a failure, and with one supply of ammunition. The magazine was in two tubes in the stock. The chance of blowing up was thought remote; but it eventually blew up. In short, it would be strictly advantageous to inventors in gunnery, to be sure that there has been no previous invention combining their principle as well as their arrangements. The mine of complex inventions was exhausted during the last century; and the greatest benefactor to the science of gunnery will be he, who, blowing away the cobwebs of mystery, renders its principles as clear as the silvered glass. Nothing now remains of the beautiful machinery of the flint lock; the fancy cock and hammers have given place to a “simple” hammer, striking on a copper thimble, covering a steel pivot. What would the old lock-filers say to this, if they could return and see their handiwork consigned to the scrap-box as old iron?