years ago being only one ninth of what it is now. The commissioner estimated that Ohio would pay $16,000,000 of the internal revenue, which, if the other States paid in proportion, would bring the internal revenue up to $160,000,000 per annum.

Details of the local institutions of the State, will be found in the ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA, 1862. OPELOUSAS, the capital of St. Landry parish, or county, in Louisiana, is situated 50 miles in direct line west of Baton Rouge, and seven miles from the head of navigation on the Courtableau. It is the seat of Franklin College, and contained a court house and other public buildings. It was occupied by Gen. Banks on the 20th of April, 1863.

ORDNANCE. The improvement made in the manufacture of ordnance and projectiles since the spring of 1861, in the United States and in Europe, has been so considerable as to be deserving of record. At the commencement of the civil war, the amount of ordnance in the country was not large, though sufficient for all emergencies which had thus far occurred. The Secretary of War reports that there were in the possession of the United States, at the beginning of the war, 1,052 pieces of siege and sea-coast artillery of all calibers, and 231 pieces of field artillery. These were of a great var ety of sizes, and some of them in unfit condi

The annual profits of the State in the last ten years, by the construction of her public works, are estimated at $20,000,000 on the carriage alone, aside from the stimulus given to all kinds of industry. Ohio has more miles of canals and railroads than any other State of the Union, having a route of railroad to every thirteen square miles, while New York has one to every seventeen square miles, and Illinois one to every twenty. The only State equalling Ohio in the production of grain is Illinois, but this State has 16,000 square miles more than Ohio. In the production of animals, of which there were in 1860 8,240,067, Ohio is actually the first. The total value of agricultural products, including grains, wool, hay, and animals, at Cincinnati prices, is estimated at $136,000,000. Of this amount, more than one half is surplus, so that the value of agricultural exports amounts to $80,000,000, as ascertained at shipping points of lake, river, canal, and railroads. The wealth of Ohio has doubled in the last ten years. In 1850, it was assessed at $504,000,000, and in 1860, at $1,193,898,000, showing an increase of $600,000,000 in ten years. Twenty years ago the taxes of the State were $1,890,000, now they amount to $8,000,000-more than fourfold. This is not an increase of the ratio of taxation, but of taxable property; the valuation of property twenty

were mostly columbiads, or, as they are called in Europe, Paixhan guns-smooth-bore cast iron guns, cast solid and bored. A few were Rodman guns, smooth bores, cast hollow, and with a water core which gave the inner surface of the cannon the character of chilled iron. The smaller guns were of a great variety of patterns and material-cast iron, bronze, and brass, and their projectiles ranging from three to forty-eight pounds. The whole field artillery actively organized consisted of seven batteries, each of four guns, smooth bore, six and twelve pounder howitzers. There was not at that time a single rifled cannon in the United States service. The Navy Department had on hand, on the 4th of March, 1861, 2,966 guns of all calibers. Of these, 1,872, or nearly two think were thirty-two pounders, of six different patterns; 107 were twelve pounders, of two pat terns; 29 were twenty-four pounders; were eight-inch guns, of four different p terns; 27 were ten-inch guns; 305 were nice inch Dahlgrens; 19, ten-inch Dahlgrens, and 32, eleven-inch Dahlgrens. Nearly or quite one half of these guns were captured by the enemy or destroyed, at the burning of the navy yard at Portsmouth, Va. Only 555 in all were on board ships, and of these nearly one fourth were on the ships destroyed at that time. Of the army artillery, it is doubtful if there were 500 pieces in serviceable condition at the com mand of the Government at the beginning the war, and in the navy the amount of all cal ibers did not exceed 1,000. Some of the States, and some private individuals, possessed a few

pieces, usually of small caliber. There had been for some years before the public, several inventions for the purpose of applying the principle of rifling, which had been so successful in small arms, to cannon, but none of these had been adopted by the Government, or were in use in the field batteries or forts under the control of the War Department, or in the vessels of the navy. The adaptation of the system of rifling invented by Charles T. James for small arms, was proposed, and repeated experiments were made with it, but it was found to require material modifications, and the death of the inventor by the explosion of his own cannon, in October, 1862, caused the abandonment of the efforts at improvement of that gun. Capt. R. P. Parrott, of the West Point foundry, had invented just previous to the war, a rifled cannon, which, with some improvements in the projectiles and the method of rifling, has proved the most successful of the numerous attempts at producing rifled cannon in this country. It is a muzzle loader (the breech-loading cannon having proved objectionable), and consists of a cast-iron gun, much lighter than ordinary, but having a "reinforce" or cylindrical jacket of wrought iron shrunk around the breech at the seat of the charge. His method of shrinking this cylinder on the cast-iron gun is peculiar. The gun is laid nearly horizontally with its axis, the muzzle being slightly depressed, and when the cylinder is heated and slipped on, a stream of cold water is forced continuously into the bore of the gun, and from its slight depression flows out constantly. By this means the inner surface of the cylinder is cooled soonest, and contracts closely on the gun, drawing the outer surface around it. Six calibers of these guns are made by order of the Government, viz.: 10, 20, 30, 100, 200, and 300 pounders. The following table gives the diameters and length of bore, the weight and relative caliber, of each

of the smooth bores:

The charge for the 8-inch or 200-pounder gun, is 16 lbs. The projectiles weigh about 150 lbs., and the ranges as ascertained in the siege of Charleston, are somewhat greater than those of the 100-pounder. At the greatest elevation the range attained exceeded five miles. The 300-pounder weighs 26,000 lbs., uses a charge of 25 lbs., and a projectile weighing 250 lbs. At an elevation of 35° it has thrown this formidable missile over five and one fourth miles.

The Parrott projectile was designed expressly for the gun. The groove, the twist, the caliber, and the heavy charge for each caliber, are all

jectile to the gun. The length of the shell is equal to three calibers, and is cylindro-conical in form. A brass ring is fitted around the contraction of the base, making it cylindrical. The gas entering between the iron and the brass, forces the latter into the groove, by which the rotary motion is communicated to the projectile. The ring is prevented from slipping off the shell by having the two surfaces in contact corrugated, and by some projections on the upper edge of the ring, which are jagged into the metal of the shell. Great simplicity, accuracy, and strength are the crowning merits of this gun.

For siege purposes, for attacks on fortifications by vessels of the Monitor type, and for naval conflicts requiring great weight of metal, the Government have adopted the Rodman guns of 8, 10, 13, 15 and 20-inch caliber, and the Dahlgren of 9, 10 and 11-inch caliber, the latter exclusively for the navy. Both these guns are smooth bores, though a very few of the Dahlgrens have been rifled. The Rodman gun, named after Major Rodman of the regular army, who is the inventor and superintendent of its manufacture, is of iron, cast hollow, and the core is kept cool during the casting by a constant stream of cold water passing through it.

The following table shows the weight of each size, the service charge, and the weight of the solid shot thrown by each:

Of the 9, 10 and 11-inch Dahlgren guns, 804 had been made since the war commenced, to Nov. 1st, 1863, and about 200 more were to be furnished by the close of the year. Of the Rodman guns, the number has been over 2,000. The first of the 20-inch guns was cast in Pittsburg, on the 11th of February, 1864, after many months of preparation for its casting and finishing. The Rodman and Dahlgren guns are all cast at Pittsburg, and the Parrotts at West Point.

For field service the ten and twenty-pound Parrott, the brass twelve-pounders (Napoleons, as they are generally called), and for light artillery the steel cannon manufactured by Krupp, of Prussia, and the Wiard guns, are all in use, though the preference is given to the first three. The Wiard gun is a breech loader, with a long and slender barrel, except at the breech, which is very bulky, and composed of successive layers of hard and soft metals.

Mortars of larger size than had ever before been used for siege purposes on this continent, have been tried during the existing war, and from floating carriages-mortar schooners. They lack precision when thus employed, and though they accomplished some good purposes in the various instances in which they were employed on the Mississippi river, they effect so much less than the cannon of the same caliber, that they are not likely to be very generally employed in the future. Two sizes were adopted, 10-inch and 13-inch, requiring service charges of 10 and 20 pounds of powder, and throwing a projectile weighing 100 and 200 lbs. respectively. The 10-inch mortars weighed 9,500 lbs., and the 13-inch 17,000 lbs. Of the latter 200 had been cast previous to November 1st, 1863.

The Confederates have introduced a new rifled gun into their service, invented by Capt.

The

Brooke, one of their artillery officers. It seems to bear a strong resemblance to the Blakely (English) and Treadwell guns, and is hooped with iron or steel bands closely adherent to the cannon, not merely at the seat of the charge, but along its whole length. Dr. Girard, a French writer formerly resident in this country, and who has, since the war, visited Charleston, describes it as follows: "An attentive observer would not fail to remark the circular bands closely united to the piece, and which are destined to give a better resisting force. With regard to its rifling it is on the system of inclined planes instead of grooves. projectiles are of forged (wrought) iron. Those I had an opportunity of examining were adapted to 7-inch guns. Their form is elongated, cylindrical nearly their entire length, with the exception of the front part, which is slightly conical and rounded off at its periphery. The two extremities are vertical. The hinder part which presents itself to the breech of the picce bears on its circumference a bell-mouthed groove, and receives a copper ring whose ends nearly meet at the end of the projectile. The projectile has bands of copper running round it. one about four inches from the front, and the other close to the hinder part. These bands alone are destined to take the rifling of the piece. The mean length of these projectiles is 12 inches, their posterior diameter 6,34, their anterior diameter 6,5%, and their weight from 116 to 120 lbs. At a distance of 260 yards, and with a charge of 12 lbs. of powder, they penetrated four iron plates of two inches each, backed with 18 inches of oak, the whole fixed against a clayey cliff."

87

The form and material of the projectiles for rifled ordnance have been a matter of profound study and research with numerous inventors. The Government, after a great number of careful and thorough trials, has given the preference to the inventions of four manufacturers, viz.: the Parrott, Shenkl, Hotchkiss and Sawyer projectiles, while a fifth, the Roberts shot. shell, and musket cartridge, is receiving examination with a fair prospect of being introduced into the service. The Parrott projectile, whether shell or shot, is long, pointed at the anterior extremity, and of smaller circumference in the centre than at either extremity, The base alone fits closely to the bore of the cannon, and has a ring of soft brass or a cup of the same metal, which by the expansive force of the gas of the projecting charge, is driven into the grooves to an extent sufficient to give it the rotary motion, and the extensive range of the rifle. The Hotchkiss and Sawyer projectiles use a metallic alloy of lead and antimony as a jacket to be forced into the grooves of the rifled ordnance, and the Shenkl missile applies papier maché to the same purpose. It all three, the softer material is driven upon the tapering spindle of the iron which forms the body of the projectile, from its posterior portion, by the force of the expansion produced

by the ignition of the powder, and held there by shoulders projecting from the iron itself, and the rotary motion is thus imparted nearer the centre of gravity than in the Parrott projectile. The Roberts projectile has a core of iron tapering to a point at the posterior end, with a shoulder near the anterior extremity, and the soft metal (lead and antimony) which forms the jacket is in sufficient quantity to render the projectile cylindrical in form, and is forced forward by the action of the gas so as to check all windage and make the anterior portion of the projectile heaviest. The inventor claims for it better range, less deflection, no danger of stripping, and economy of cost of the missile itself, and of wear or injury to the gun. His shell projectile, constructed externally in the same way, is a percussion shell, for which he claims safety from accidental explosion, and certainty of explosion at the moment of impact. The attention of inventors has also been directed to the adaptation of ordnance to firing under water either from ships or from submarine batteries, thus destroying the immunity which war vessels were supposed to enjoy from injuries by shot striking them far below the water line. Experiments have been made on this subject both in England and the United States, and it seems to be demonstrated that a ship of war could carry her entire armament below the water-line, and by firing under water speedily sink any war vessel now afloat. As yet no vessel has been constructed to do this, but two submarine batteries, destined to be navigated under water, and to make their attacks upon ships of war without becoming visible themselves, have been commenced in this country, though neither is yet completed. One of these was planned, and partly finished, by the late Major E. B. Hunt, and it was from the effect of the gases generated by firing under water that he fell and met with the injuries which resulted in his death.

In Great Britain, the rifled ordnance most in favor has been the Armstrong gun, Whitworth's gun, and the Blakely gun. Other in ventors, especially Mr. Bashley Britten, Mr. Lynall Thomas, Mr. Jeffrey, Mr. Hadden, Commander Scott, of the Royal Navy, and Mr. Westley Richards (the celebrated rifle manufacturer), have taken out patents for projectiles. The Armstrong gun, though adopted by the War Department in 1858, and being, to the present time, with slight exceptions, the only rifled cannon in either the army or navy service, is not at all satisfactory, and will probably be discarded before long. The gun is built up by a welded coil of iron, either with or without an inner tube of steel, and hoops of coiled iron are shrunk over this coil. It is a breech loader, and the vent pieces are separate and must be lifted out or slid on one side after each discharge. This vent piece is very liable to get out of order, as its adaptation to its place is a very delicate operation, and it, as well as the breech screws, is often blown out

or injured by the discharge of the gas at the breech of the gun. The inventor has endeavored to obviate the objections to this by furnishing two extra vent pieces to every gun; but these prove insufficient. There is considerable emission of gas at the breech, and this is sometimes attended with danger. The mode of rifling is what is called the fluted bore; the number of grooves varying from eight in the three-pounders, to seventy-six in the hundred-pounder or seven-inch gun. The projectile, which after almost innumerable experiments, he has adopted, is nearly a plain cylinder with almost flat or slightly rounded ends, coated with lead, which in firing enables it to take the form of the grooves, and thus prevent windage. Nearly 3,000 of his guns have been manufactured by the British Government since 1858, at an expense of about 13 millions of dollars, and in spite of his numerous improvements and changes in them, his friend and assistant, Mr. Anderson, now the superintendent of the Government Ordnance Works at Woolwich, states that "they are still very bad in many particulars." The objections to them are that they are weak and will not bear a heavy charge of powder, that their range is not as long as that of other guns, and their initial velocity less; that they are not superior, if equal, to the old smooth-bore guns of even smaller caliber in their power of penetrating iron plates at short range, and that the projectile strips off its lead almost at the moment of leaving the gun, thus endangering in many instances the troops engaged near it. These objections have proved so serious, that Sir William Armstrong has recently invented a new gun on the shunt principle of rifling, that is, with two sets of grooves, one for the admission of the projectile (his new gun is a muzzle-loader), and the other those by which, being rammed home, it must pass out when the gun is discharged, the latter fitting closely, and having a shorter ". "turn than his previous gun, and the projectile being entirely of wrought iron. This gun, of which he has great hopes, has not yet been introduced into the service. Sir William Armstrong has also invented a shell built up of a great number of segments of cast iron cemented together with lead, and containing a bursting charge, which has been highly extolled, but is said in practice to be liable to burst prematurely. Whitworth's gun is in all respects the most original and ingenious application of the scientific principles of gunnery to the construction of ordnance yet attempted. He had become distinguished as early as 1854 for the adaptation of a new principle to the construction of the rifle and its projectile; and in 1857 commenced applying the same principle to ordnance, though in a desultory way, as he had no intention at that time of becoming a manufacturer of cannon. The principles which he applied to ordnance construction were the hexagonal form of the bore, and the rapid turn of the rifling (one revolution in ten inches in his

larger pieces). The term hexagonal as applied to the bore, though nearly, is not absolutely accurate, as the angles were a little rounded. The projectiles which he invented were also peculiar in form and character. They were of steel or "homogeneous iron," which is a mild steel, and is extensively used by Krupp, of Prussia, for cannon. In form they were hexagonal, with a twist corresponding to the turn of the bore; at first the anterior end was oval or rounded at its extremity, but when the penetration of iron plates with ordnance projectiles began to be recognized as a necessity, he made the head or front flat, with the edge a little raised and sharp. The hexagonal surfaces were slightly hollowed to give the projectile more steadiness of motion. At a later period he still further improved both its steadiness and range very greatly by making it taper toward the posterior end, giving it lines somewhat resembling those of a ship of the new model. These projectiles have sometimes made as many as 60,000 rotations per minute. We have said that Mr. Whitworth did not at first intend to become a manufacturer of cannon. At the instance of some of the ordnance officers he made several brass pieces on his principle, the brass blocks being furnished to him by the department, and subsequently some pieces from cast-iron blocks, which, however, burst after a few trials, cast-iron cannon made by boring proving too weak for the severe strain required from rifled pieces. The Ordnance Department having committed themselves fully to Sir William Armstrong's guns, refused, with some rudeness, to have anything more to do with Mr. Whitworth's rifled ordnance; and as he believed that he had hit upon the best principles for the construction of rifled guns, he resolved to go into their manufacture, and eventually convince the Government of the error they had made. The question of what was the best material for ordnance was the first to be decided, and having tested in his previous experiments brass and cast iron, neither of which seemed to him to possess the requisite tenacity and strength, he fixed upon "homogeneous iron," a mild steel, as combining the two qualities of hardness and toughness in the requisite proportion, and at the same time permitting the gun to be much lighter than if made of cast iron. His guns were hooped with steel through their whole length, the hoops being forced on cold by hydraulic pressure; back of the trunnions were three layers of hoops. Recognizing the advantages of breech-loading, he constructed his guns to load equally well from the breech or muzzle, but without any chamber at the breech for the expansion of the gases, which was not needful, as his projectile did not change size or form from firing. The bore was of the same size throughout. The construction of the breech was very simple, and there was no necessity for a separate vent piece, as in the Armstrong gun. The range and accuracy of these guns have never been sur

passed; the three-pounder, in the experiment at Southport, having thrown its shot, at an angle of 35°, to a distance of 9,688 yards, and his twelve-pounder, a projectile 10,300 yards or nearly six miles. The Whitworth shell has, however, proved the chef d'œuvre of his inven tions in connection with firearms. The power of his projectiles to penetrate iron plates of four and a half or five and a half inches, when fired from his seven-inch gun even at a distance of 800 yards, was fully demonstrated; but it was objected that they could only punch a round hole through the walls of the ironclad vessels which could easily be plugged. Thereupon Mr. Whitworth demonstrated that this cylindrical flat-fronted projectile could be fired through the water without deflection or such obstruction of its velocity as to prevent its penetrating the hull of any ship far below the water line. He also undertook, what other inventors pronounced impossible, to make a shell which should penetrate five or six inches of iron armor, and then explode inside the vessel. For this purpose he made his shell of the same material as his shot (homogeneous iron). with a heavy flat front, and in the cavity placed his charge of powder or other explosive material, wrapped in several folds of flannel. No percussion cap or fuse was required, the inpact of the shell upon the iron plating predte ing a condensation of the iron, accompanie with such disengagement of heat as was suicient to explode the shell, while the flannel acted as a time fuse to delay the explosion tili the shell had passed into the vessel. The advantage of this method of making shells, if it could be accomplished without impairing their formidable qualities, was obvious, for they could be transported without danger, and the numerous serious disasters resulting from their accidental explosion could be avoided. In s succession of experiments made upon the Warrior target at Shoeburyness, this shell accom plished all that its inventor promised, penetrat ing the target with its wooden backings, and when by experiment the requisite number of piles of flannel for enveloping the charge was determined, exploding with terrific force be hind the target.

The Blakely gun has a steel tube for its core. thickest about the centre of the gun, tapering externally toward the butt and muzzle, and upon this hoops of iron in successive layers are driven. The form of his projectiles we have not seen, but they are said to be constracted on mathematical principles, and their rotation, like that of the Whitworth projectile, is very rapid. These guns have been constructed of very large caliber, and a considerable number of them have been imported by the Confal erates, with whom, however, they are not now in favor, owing to their liability to burst. The British Government ordered from the inventor, in Jan., 1864, an 800-pounder cannon which is to be tested to destruction, and four others are to be manufactured on his plans at Woolwich.