The New French cannon.
--The
Paris correspondent of the London Times has the following particulars relative to the mortar cannon alluded to in a former letter by him.
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"The tube or barrel is formed of several cylinders or rings of cast or wrought iron, its longitudinal cylindrical parts affording the means of uniting the rings.
The interior of the tube is rifled by means of a number of projecting spiral rods, shaped in triangular prisms.
The tube can be lengthened at pleasure.
The breech of the gun is a mortar, to which the tube is attached, and from which it may be detached, either for the purpose of loading it at the breech or of making use of it as a mortar.
It is alleged that this cannon cannot become heated, that the process of cleansing after each discharge is unnecessary, except as regards the breech, and that it may be fired four or five times during the space now required to fire any other gun once.
Another consequence said to follow from the non-heating of the barrel of the gun is, that there is no danger of bursting, either from defect in the metal or from overcharge.
The gun may otherwise be lengthened or shortened at pleasure.
The inventor states that a gun throwing a shot of 120-lb.
weight may be taken to pieces and conveyed on the back of a horse or mule over roads impassable for carriages.
He shows that there is a considerable saving in the construction of this gun in consequence of the tube being of open work, and of iron in place of bronze.
It may be as light as is consistent with the resistance which its weight must necessary oppose to the recoil produced by its discharge.
The inventor expects that this gun will supercede mortars, and that every cannon mounted on a ship's deck may be used both as a cannon and a mortar, and that a ship which carries forty guns may be said to carry forty guns and forty mortars.
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