§ The revolution in field guns was closely followed by a corresponding revolution in heavy ordnance. The experience of the Crimean War proved two things: that the development of the shell gun necessitated the provision of armour to protect the flanks of warships; and that the development of armour necessitated a heavy ordnance of a greater power than existing smooth-bore cannon. The shell gun, in fact, induced a rifled ordnance. The French, who had already found a cheap and sufficiently effective rifled field artillery in the conversion of their smooth-bores on the de Beaulieu principle, merely had to extend this conversion to their heavier pieces. By 1860 they had converted their 30- and 50-pounder cannon in this way, thus enabling them to be used for the discharge of either spherical or elongated projectiles. Britain, on the other hand, found herself committed to an entirely new and experimental system which could not be applied to existing ordnance; a large outlay of money was thereby involved for new plant and guns; our vast establishment of smooth-bore cast-iron cannon was in danger of being reduced to scrap material. At the same time doubts were expressed whether this new system, whose success as applied to medium pieces was generally admitted, would be found satisfactory when applied to the largest size of ordnance. It was natural, then, that great interest should be centred in what was regarded as a less experimental alternative to the Armstrong system, in case the latter failed. The results obtained by Mr. Whitworth in the manufacture of solid cannon, rifled hexagonally, muzzle-loading and capable of firing hexagonal bolts or, in emergency, spherical balls, were such as to give promise of competing successfully with those obtained from the ordnance officially patronized. To the public the simplicity of his system strongly appealed. Mr. Whitworth himself, far from being deterred by the decision given in favour of his rival, was now an enthusiastic exponent of the constructive principles which he had made his own. Trial succeeded trial, piece after piece was made and tested to destruction. By 1860 a very successful ordnance was evolved at Manchester by him: guns made of homogeneous iron, forged in large masses, and formed of cylindrical tubes forced one over another by means of a known hydraulic pressure--not, as in the Armstrong system, by heating and shrinking. And on the sands at Southport a series of public trials were carried out with these guns, the results of which proved a great advertisement for the Whitworth system. The accuracy of flight of the projectiles was unprecedented, and all records in ranging power were broken by one of the pieces, a 3-pounder, which threw a shot to a distance of 9,688 yards![128]