The development of the system of granulation must and does exercise considerable control over the shooting of barrels of every description. I have already explained what has been hitherto considered the curious phenomena of short and long barrels shooting so dissimilarly, and this illustration completely establishes the fact of the expulsive and repulsive forces being controlled by each other: as either preponderates, so is the result. The open-ended barrel projecting balls, and eventually bursting, is a beautiful and interesting elucidation, both of the force of gunpowder and the stubborn nature of the atmospheric fluid. All these facts are valuable, inasmuch as they lay bare circumstances which have never been satisfactorily accounted for, and enable the mind of lowest capacity to understand the cause and effect. The superiority of one barrel in throwing shot stronger and more evenly distributed, arises, it will be easily seen, from the absence, or existence of, internal friction, when contrasted with the different degrees of expelling force, and the degree of resistance from the atmosphere; it also accounts clearly for the fact of guns shooting stronger on one day than on another, in fine and in rough weather: the weight, the resistance of the air, is the only cause of the variation; for gunpowder cannot drive back a dense atmosphere as quickly as a lighter one. The cause of guns bursting is to be placed to the account of both air and the generation of the explosive fluid so instantaneously; the solid front which air offers to quick compression, throws the force on the barrel, and the sides of the tube give way because they are weaker: this cannot occur so easily with powder of a more gradually expansive force, therefore safety is consulted in its use, in addition to the numerous advantages it otherwise possesses. Mr. Blaine, in his Encyclopædia of Rural Sports, has the following: “The increase of metal in the detonator, we think, with Colonel Hawker, to be an essential requisite, first, to resist the quicker, and, consequently, more forcible, expansive force applied by the ignition of the powder through the agency of detonation, and tend to lessen the recoil so much more forcibly felt in most detonators. This increased weight of percussion Mr. Greener, however, objects to, and inquires, ‘Whether some of the best flint guns met with, have not been very light?’ To this we answer, that it was the principle on which the explosion of the flint gun was effected that enabled it to be made lighter, and yet to remain equally safe in using; but we also know, that where it was required to add to the rapidity and force of the ignition, it then became necessary to increase the substance of the barrel.”