The English Government, as usual the last to make a change, decided in 1864 upon using breech-loading rifles. Till a more perfect weapon could be obtained the Enfields were at a small outlay converted into breech-loaders after the plans of Mr. Snider, and were henceforward known as Snider-Enfields. Eventually--as the result of open competition--the Martini-Henry rifle was produced by combining Henry’s system of rifling with Martini’s mechanism for breech-loading. This weapon had seven grooves with one turn in twenty-two inches, and weighed with bayonet 10 lb. 4 oz. It fired with great accuracy, the trajectory having a rise of only eight feet at considerable distances, so that the bullet would not pass over the head of a cavalry man. Twenty rounds could be fired in fifty-three seconds. Now in the latter years of the century all these weapons have been superseded by magazine rifles, _i.e._ rifles which can be fired several times without recourse to the ammunition pouch. They differ from the revolver in having only one firing chamber, into which the cartridges are one by one brought by a simple action of the breech mechanism, which also extracts the empty cartridge-case. The bore of these rifles is smaller and the rifling sharper; they therefore shoot straighter and harder than the large bore, and owing to the use of new explosives the recoil is less. The French _Lebel_ magazine rifle was the pioneer of all now used by European nations, though a somewhat similar weapon was familiar to the Americans since 1849, being first used during the Civil War. The Henry rifle, as it was called, afterwards became the Winchester. The German army rifle is the _Mauser_, so familiar to us in the hands of the Boers during the South African War--loading five cartridges at once in a case or “clip” which falls out when emptied. The same rifle has been adopted by Turkey, and was used by the Spaniards in the late Spanish-American War. The Austrian _Mannlicher_, adopted by several continental nations, and the Krag-Jorgensen now used in the north of Europe and as the United States army weapon, resemble the Mauser in most particulars. Each of these loads the magazine in one movement with a clip. The _Hotchkiss_ magazine rifle has its magazine in the stock, holding five extra cartridges pushed successively into loading position by a spiral spring.