Such was the man who made modern artillery possible. To Mr. Whitworth, who knew nothing himself of guns or of gun-making, the government went for advice on the shortcomings of the Enfield rifle. At their request he promptly began an analytical inquiry into the principles underlying the action of rifles and the flight of their projectiles, resolved and urged to discover the secret of the very partial success so far attained. The results of this inquiry, published in ’57, had a great influence on the future of rifled fire-arms and ordnance. Briefly, he discovered that the amount of twist hitherto given to the rifling of gun-barrels had been wholly insufficient to maintain the projectile in its true direction during flight; the weight of the projectile, relatively to its diameter, had been insufficient to give it the necessary momentum to sustain its velocity against the resistance of the air; lastly, the accuracy of manufacture of rifles had been inadequate to the ensuring of a good fit of the bullet in the bore. To prove the truth of these assertions a Whitworth rifle was produced by him which gave better results than any other hitherto made. The form of rifling which the inventor adopted was considered objectionable, and the rifle itself, with its polygonal barrel, was not approved by the authorities; but, instead, the valuable results of Whitworth’s experiments were embodied in the Enfield, to its obvious improvement. [Illustration: WHITWORTH RIFLE BULLET] The muzzle-loading rifle had now reached the limit of its development. The rifle was the accepted arm of all the great military powers. But in the case of one of them, Prussia, the principle of breech-loading was already in favour, and it was not long before the progress in mechanical science enabled this principle to prove its superiority over the ancient principle of muzzle-loading. Although in the Prussian needle-gun great difficulties were encountered; although in service its reputation suffered from such defects as the rusting of the needles which pierced the percussion cartridges, the failure of springs, the escape of gases at the breech; yet it was recognized that none of these defects was necessarily inherent in the breech-loading system, and its merits were admitted. With the breech-loader a greater rapidity of fire was always attainable, there was less difficulty in preventing fouling, and, above all, there was the certainty that the powder-charge would be fired to its last effective grain. In 1864 breech-loading rifles were recommended for the British army, and shortly afterwards they were introduced in the form of converted Enfields. §