That the result here predicted has now been obtained no one can doubt. Greater extension of range is yet attainable; but accuracy of range amounts already to almost mathematical precision. All that is now required is, that the same principle should be applied to the heaviest projectiles; and when these are projected under precisely the same laws, experience will further establish this principle, that “the heavier the body in equal velocities the less the deflection from atmospheric resistance.” When this is demonstrated the present order of things will be reversed; heavy ordnance will exceed the shoulder rifle in extension and accuracy of range, whilst the shoulder rifle will again fall back to its former state of comparative inferiority. Barrels were first grooved or rifled at Vienna, about the year 1498. The original object of grooving or rifling the barrels was to find space for the reception of the foul residue produced by discharging the rifle, and thus to diminish the friction of the bullet as it was forced down by the ramrod. During the next twenty years a spiral turn was given to the groove, and bullets were used with projections to fit the grooves, the degree of twist or spiral varying as the skill of the gun-maker thought best. The difficulty of loading rifles has at all times been a drawback to their universal adoption as warlike weapons, and it has been reserved for a humble individual to achieve that which all the talent devoted to it for three centuries had hitherto failed to accomplish. A multitude of claimants have “put in their plea” for a share in some part of the invention; and it may benefit not only the present but also the future generation, if we give a succinct account of the approaches made by different men towards the present established principle, and show the bearing each had in bringing about the revolution that has taken place in the science of gunnery. The earliest notice of an elongated bullet is Robins’s “egg-shaped,” which gives to the hemispherical end the centre of gravity, thus establishing the first essential principle; but theory and practice were here sadly discordant, for its wild uncertain flight, caused by the small end acting as a rudder, rendered his theory useless, and it soon died of a natural death.