Returning to _small arms_,--at the time percussion caps were invented in England, 1803-1814, John H. Hall of the United States invented a breech-loading rifle. It was in substance an ordinary musket cut in two at the breech, with the rear piece connected by a hinge and trunnion to the front piece, the bore of the two pieces being in line when clamped, and the ball and cartridge inserted when the chamber was thrown up. A large number were at once manufactured and used in the U.S. Army. A smaller size, called _carbines_, were used by the mounted troops. After about twenty years’ use these guns began to be regarded as dangerous in some respects, and their manufacture and use stopped, although the carbines continued in use to some extent in the cavalry. A breech-loading rifle was also invented by Colonel Pauly of France in 1812, and improved by Dreyse in 1835; also in Norway in 1838, and in a few years adopted by Sweden as superior to all muzzle-loading arms. About 1841 the celebrated “Needle Gun” was invented in Prussia, and its superiority over all muzzle-loaders was demonstrated in 1848 in the first Schleswig-Holstein war. _Cartridges_, in which the ball and powder were secured together in one package, were old in artillery, as has been shown, but their use for small arms is a later invention. _Metallic_ cartridges, made of sheet metal with a fulminate cap in one end and a rim on the end of the shell by which it could be extracted after the explosion, were invented by numerous persons in Europe and America during the evolution of the breech-loader. Combined metal case and paper patented in England in 1816, and numerous wholly metallic cartridge shells were patented in England, France, and United States between 1840 and 1860. M. Lefaucheux of France, in the later period, devised a metal _gas check_ cartridge which was a great advance.