The _Gatling_ machine-gun, which has been much improved in late years by the Accles system of “feed,” and is not yet completely out of date, consists of a circular series of ten barrels--each with its own lock--mounted on a central shaft and revolved by a suitable gear. The cartridges are successively fed by automatic actions into the barrels, and the hammers are so arranged that the entire operation of loading, closing the breech, firing and withdrawing the empty cartridge-cases (which is known as their “longitudinal reciprocating motion”) is carried on while the locks are kept in constant revolution, along with the barrels and breech, by means of a hand-crank. One man places a feed-case filled with cartridges into the hopper, another turns the crank. As the gun is rotated the cartridges drop one by one from the feed-cases into the grooves of the carrier, and its lock loads and fires each in turn. While the gun revolves further the lock, drawing back, extracts and drops the empty case; it is then ready for the next cartridge. In action five cartridges are always going through some process of loading, while five empty shells are in different stages of ejection. The latest type, fitted with an electro-motor, will fire at the _rate_ of one thousand rounds per minute, and eighty rounds have actually been fired within ten seconds! It is not, however, safe to work these machine-guns so fast, as the cartridges are apt to be occasionally pulled through unfired and then explode among the men’s legs. The automatic guns, on the contrary, as they only work by the explosion, are free from any risk of such accidents. The feed-drums contain 104 cartridges, and can be replaced almost instantly. One drumful can be discharged in 5-1/4 seconds. The small-sized Gatling has a drum-feed of 400 cartridges in sixteen sections of twenty-five each passed up without interruption. The gun is mounted for use so that it can be pointed at any angle, and through a wide lateral range, without moving the carriage. _The Gardner._--The Gatling, as originally made, was for a time superseded by the _Gardner_, which differed from it in having the barrels (four or fewer in number) fixed in the same horizontal plane. This was worked by a rotatory handle on the side of the gun. The cartridges slid down a feed-case in a column to the barrel, where they were fired by a spring acting on a hammer.