Cannon,
In the
United States, were cast at
Lynn, Mass., by
Henry Leonard, in 1647, and at
Orr's foundry,
Bridgewater, 1648.
In 1735 the
Hope Furnace was established in
Rhode Island, where six heavy cannon, ordered by the
State, were cast in 1775.
The heaviest guns used at this time were 18-pounders.
William Denning makes wrought-iron cannon of staves bound together with wrought-iron bands, and boxed and breeched, 1790.
Colonel Bomford, of the
United States ordnance department, invents a cannon called the columbiad, a long-chambered piece for projecting solid shot and shell with a heavy charge of powder, 1812.
West Point foundry established under special patronage of the government, 1817.
First contract of
Gouverneur Kemble, president, for the West Point Foundry Association, for thirty-two 42-pounders, long guns, July 11, 1820.
First gun rifled in
America at the
[
51]
South Boston Iron Company's foundry, 1834.
Cyrus Alger patents and makes the first malleable iron guns cast and converted in an oven, 1836.
Earliest piece of heavy ordnance cast at the South Boston foundry, a 10-in.
columbiad, under the supervision of
Colonel Bomford; weight, 14,500 lbs.; shot, 130 lbs.; shell, 90 lbs.; charge of powder, 18 lbs., Sept. 6, 1839.
Character of “gun iron” definitely fixed by the “metallo-dynamoter,” a testing-machine invented by
Major Wade, 1840.
First 12-in.
columbiad; weight, 25,510 lbs.; extreme range, 5,761 yds.; weight of shell, 172 lbs.; charge of powder, 20 lbs.; cast at the South Boston foundry, July 8, 1846.
Dahlgren gun, of iron, cast solid and cooled from the exterior, very thick at breech and diminishing to muzzle; first cast, May, 1850.
Rodman gun, a columbiad model, smooth-bore, made by the Rodman process of hollow casting, cooled from the interior; adopted by the
United States for all sea-coast cannon, 1860.
First 10-lb.
Parrot gun, of iron, cast hollow, cooled from the inside and strengthened by an exterior tube made of wrought-iron bars spirally coiled and shrunk on; made at the
West Point foundry, 1860.
15-in.
Rodman gun, weighing 49,000 lbs., cast by the
South Boston Iron Company, 1860.
Parrott gun first put to test of active warfare in the
battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861.
Gatling rapid-firing gun, from five to ten barrels around one common axis; tenbarrel
Gatling discharges 1,200 shots a minute; range, 3,000 yds.; invented in 1861.
S. B. Dean, of
South Boston Iron Company, patents a process of rough boring bronze guns and forcibly expanding the bore to its finished size by means of mandrels, 1869.
Pneumatic dynamite torpedo-gun built and mounted at Fort Lafayette (founded on invention of
D. M. Mefford, of
Ohio), 1885.
Congress makes an appropriation for the establishment of a plant for gunmaking at the Watervliet arsenal,
West Troy, 1889.
Manufacture of heavy ordnance begun at the
Washington navy-yard, 1890.
Hotchkiss gun, English make, five barrels, revolving around a common axis, placed upon block weighing about 386 tons, fires thirty rounds a minute; adopted by the
United States in 1891.
Automatic rapid-firing gun, invented by John and
Matthew Browning, of
Ogden, Utah; firing 400 shots in one minute and forty-nine seconds; adopted by the
United States in 1896.
Zalinski's dynamite gun, calibre 15 ins.; throws 500 lbs. of explosive gelatine 2,100 yds.; also discharges smaller shells.
Three of the guns of this class were used with tremendous effect by the
United States dynamite cruiser
Vesuvius at the bombardment of
Santiago de Cuba in 1898, and larger ones have been installed at
Fort Warren,
Boston; Fort Schuyler, N. Y.;
Fort Hancock, N. J., and at
San Francisco.
Graydon dynamite gun, calibre 15 ins.; using 3,000 lbs. of compressed air to the square inch; throws 600 lbs. of dynamite 3 miles.
Armstrong gun, calibre 6 ins.; weight of shot, 69.7 lbs.; of powder, 34 lbs.; pressure per square inch, 31,000 lbs.
Hurst, double-charge gun, same principles apply as in the
Armstrong and
Haskell guns.
Brown wire-wound gun, made in segments; kind authorized by Congress, 37 1/2 ft. long; weight, 30,000 lbs.
Maxim-Nordenfeldt quick-firing gun; lowest weight, 25 lbs.: maximum firing ability, 650 rounds a minute.
