As to the system of firing and gear used, electric firing was very successful as long as one had the gear for refitting and repairing and an armourer attached to one's guns; this, of course, as the guns became split up into pairs was impossible, and I may say that carting electric batteries (which of necessity for quickness have to be kept charged) in wagons or limbers over rocks and bad roads, and with continual loading and off-loading, becomes a trouble and anxiety to one. So for active service I should certainly recommend that percussion firing should be regarded as the first and principal method to be used with guns on the move, carrying also the electric gear for use if guns are left for any time at fixed spots as guns of position. I may here remark that when firing with electricity from a field carriage the battery has to be placed on the ground, clear of recoil, and therefore the wire leads must be adjusted in length accordingly. I am uncertain whether our other 12-pounders used mostly electric or percussion, but I think on the whole, percussion; and, speaking for myself, I certainly did so after experiencing the disappointments which miss-fires often gave one, when trying to get in a quick shot, say from the line of march, with the electric gear. These "miss-fires" are, moreover, often unavoidable under active service conditions, such as we had with our semi-mobile guns. The guns and connections get sometimes an inch thick in mud or dust and require time to clean, when one has no time to spare: the use of percussion tubes avoids all this. Before we leave the subject of guns the following description of the French 3" Creusot gun by the _Revue d'Artillerie_ will be of interest, viz.:-- _South Africa._--The Field Artillery of the Boers consists for the most part of Creusot 3" rapid-firing guns made after the 1895 model. These guns were purchased by the South African Republic during the year 1896.... The gun, which is constructed of forged and tempered steel, has a 3" bore. Its total length is 8 feet and its weight is 726 pounds. The body of the gun consists of three elements:--1. A tube in which the breech piece is fixed. 2. A sleeve covering the tube for a length of 3 feet 6 inches. 3. A chase hoop. The chamber is provided with twenty-four grooves of variable pitch which have a final inclination of 8 deg.. The system of breech closing is that of the interrupted screw, which presents four sectors, two of them threaded and two plain, so that the breech is opened or closed by a quarter revolution of the screw. The mechanism is of the Schneider system, patented in 1895, and has the advantage of allowing the opening or closing of the breech to be effected by the simple motion of a lever from right to left, or _vice versa_.