One other point now only remains to be noticed to bring up the _matériel_ to the end of the last century,—the pattern of siege-carriages. From the faults found with it by the committee in 1793, we can make a tolerable guess at it; the lowness and narrowness of the wheels, the projection of the pintle behind, to make room for a large store-box, and the height of the limber-wheels are complained of; and it therefore must have been something similar to that represented in sketch No. 8; in all probability, up to this time little alteration had taken place in the pattern in use. While preparing the siege-train for Seringapatam, at Bangalore, in 1792, Colonel Duff made considerable alterations in the siege-carriages; he cut off the projection from the limbers, and placed a pintle on a bolster on the axle-bed, carried the draught-chain back to the gun-carriage, and cut travelling trunnion-beds in the cheeks, to divide the weight better on the axles, and make the carriage travel easier; in fact, rendered the carriages very nearly what are now known as the “old pattern.” All the alterations were continued by the committee, and they directed that the carriage should be five, and the limber-wheels three feet high, to enable them to turn under the cheeks when limbered up. Minor improvements were added: the draught-chain was made in pieces, so as to allow of a portion of the cattle being taken off in sharp turnings, or on ground where all could not act; and a carriage was then built, which, with slight changes (reducing the gun-wheels two inches) in 1801 by Colonel MacIntyre’s committee, became the standard, and remained so till 1823. A fancy existed to obtain the use of a mortar from an howitzer, by fitting its carriage with a sliding transom, on withdrawing which, the howitzer could be elevated to 45°, its cascable resting on an additional transom fixed underneath. Major Green constructed a carriage of this kind in 1796, which was experimented on at Dum-Dum, and spoken favourably of, but eventually not found to answer, and therefore discarded. Whether the result of imitation, or of half-informed mechanical taste, we find Lena Sing Majeetiah, commandant of the Punjab artillery, indulging in a similar fantasy: a carriage adapted for the double purpose. It is scarcely possible that such a one could be useful; the shock acting vertically on the axle, would be too severe for any moderate dimensions to bear; this was found in Major Green’s carriage, and the proposed remedy was shortening the axle, which would, while strengthening, have rendered it very likely to overturn.