The coming of the Armstrong gun at once revolutionized artillery practice and material in this country. The sum of all the improvements embodied in it was so great that existing material scarcely bore comparison with it. Its accuracy as compared with that of the smooth-bore field piece which it displaced was stated in parliament to be in the ratio of fifty-seven to one. And the effect of its inventor’s achievement was, “that from being the rudest of weapons, artillery has been advanced to be nearly on a par mechanically with the steam engine or the power-loom; and it differs as essentially from the old cast-iron tube dignified with the name of a gun, as the railway train of the present day differs from the stagecoach of our forefathers.”[127] A revolutionary invention it certainly was. Yet, like most revolutionary inventions, it relied for its grand effect more on the aggregate effect of the small improvements in its various elements than on the materialization of some new-born idea. The building up of guns in coils was not a new discovery, polygroove rifling was already in use abroad, breech-loading, lead-coated projectiles, elevating screws--all had been known for years. Nor does this fact detract in the least from the fame of Mr. Armstrong in this connection. His greatness lay, surely, in the insight and initiative with which he made use of known forms and combinations, summoning to his aid the new powers placed at his disposal by Whitworth, Nasmyth, Bessemer and their contemporaries in order to evolve a system incomparably superior to anything hitherto achieved.