_Magazine Guns._--Walter Hunt’s United States patent No. 6,663, August 21, 1849, was the first on a magazine firearm of modern type. It had a sliding breech block carrying the main spring and firing pin. The Spencer rifle was one of the early ones that came into use. This had a row of cartridges in the stock, and was first patented March 6, 1860, No. 27,393. It was this weapon which in the Civil War gave proof of the deadly efficacy of the breech-loading magazine gun, and its superiority to the old style military arm. Another type of magazine firearm which in the last half century has gained great prominence and popularity is the so-called “Winchester.” This has its cartridges arranged in a tube below and parallel with the barrel, and they are fed in a column to the rear by a helical spring as fast as they are used up at the breech. The pioneer of this type is the arm patented by Smith & Wesson February 14, 1854, No. 10,535, re-issued December 30, 1873, No. 5,710. This was subsequently improved as to the extractor by B. F. Henry in patent No. 30,446, October 16, 1860, re-issued December 7, 1868, No. 3,227, and was manufactured and favorably known for many years as the _Henry rifle_. This rifle was also used in the Civil War. O. F. Winchester subsequently re-organized it in patent No. 57,808, September 4, 1866, and the arm in late years has taken his name. _The Needle Gun_, of Prussia, represents an early form of breech loader, and may be considered the prototype of the modern bolt gun. The needle gun has in the place of the swinging hammer a rectilinearly sliding bolt, carrying in front a needle which pierces the charge and ignites the fulminate by its friction. Its construction permits the fulminate to be placed in advance of the powder, which thus burns from the front, and is entirely consumed in the gun, instead of being partially blown out of the gun, as may occur when ignited in the rear. The needle gun was invented by Dreyse in 1838, was first introduced about 1846, and gave effective service in the Prusso-Austrian war of 1866. The _Chassepot_, brought out in 1867, United States patent No. 60,832, was a French development of the Prussian needle gun.