That this argument applies principally to solid forged guns I am ready to admit; and that guns forged of hoops, rings, and bars, in smaller sections, are free from this objection, I am also ready to admit. These guns are, however, liable to objections equally fatal, both as regards their enduring and projective powers, as I shall presently show. Experience proves that brass guns are inferior, both in sharpness of shooting and in range, to cast-iron guns: this is undoubtedly attributable to the greater softness of brass than of cast iron; and for the same reason a wrought-iron gun, though made as sound as one of cast iron, would be inferior in these two important points. But when a wrought-iron gun is composed of many particles imperfectly secured (and no mechanical force is sufficient to secure perfect cohesion in large masses), the wrought becomes doubly inferior to the cast gun: a shot projected from such a gun starts from an unsound base; a large portion of the explosive force is absorbed by the variety of sections composing the gun, to the injury both of the accuracy and length of range of the projectile. The softer metals cannot be beneficially used in the construction of large guns, because they destroy the force of the expellant without making any equivalent return; and the softer the metal and the greater its substance, the more clearly is this important fact demonstrated. Thus, in experiments made with large cannon for increasing the weight of the gun beyond a certain proportion to that of the projectile, a gun of ten tons weight and ten inch bore would not exceed in range a gun of five tons, if the charge of powder were the same; on account of the indisputable fact that much more force of the expellant is destroyed, whilst more than double the force is absorbed for the recoil of the ten ton than of the five ton gun; and the loss from these two causes must materially affect the flight of the projectile, though fired at exactly the same elevation. The great defect which experiment shows to exist in the hoop-and-stave wrought iron gun, and which renders the gun self-destroying, is separation at points between the trunnions and cascable of the gun. The force acting first upon the breech, it yields, and the force is then brought to bear upon the longitudinal portion of the gun behind the trunnions; the staves have thus to bear the first strain, and, after a few shots, become elongated. An opening of the hoops at their junction with each other (most frequently between the breech and trunnions) begins, after a very few shots, to be distinctly visible, and increases at every discharge, until further proceeding amounts to madness, or recklessness of human life.