to grant me Letters Patent for a new and improved mode of making cannon and ether ordnance bearing (late February 1 1862; but as the papers therewith were placed in the confidential department of the Pat ent Office it was not reported in your published list of patents of that date ; therefore you could not have had information thereof until your agency was sought to patent the mode in England on the 31st day of March. As this mode of constructing ordnance is destined in my belief to recommend itself as supe rior to all other ways of making cannon now in use I hope you will grant me the use of
to grant me Letters Patent for a new and improved mode of making cannon and ether ordnance bearing (late February 1 1862; but as the papers therewith were placed in the confidential department of the Pat ent Office it was not reported in your published list of patents of that date ; therefore you could not have had information thereof until your agency was sought to patent the mode in England on the 31st day of March. As this mode of constructing ordnance is destined in my belief to recommend itself as supe rior to all other ways of making cannon now in use I hope you will grant me the use of your valuable paper for the purpose of presenting a few reflections on the subject of ordnance. It is generally conceded I believe that since the coal measures of the earth have been opened and coal so generally used in the smelting of iron ores the cannon and other ord nance so made are neither se good or strong as for merly when wood only was employed ; this is be cause all coal contains to a greater or less degree a sulphur pyrite generally in the form of the bisul. phite of iron which as an atomic part of the metal is greatly destructive of its tenuity and strength. Besides all cannon and other ordnance of what ever or by whatever prin ciple they are cast are only in a crystallized form. Thus by Capt. Dahlgren's principle the outer shell of the casting from the trunnions to the end of the breech is made very hard by a cooling process which vitrifies the metal so called of the exterior of the gun for a couple of inches in depth. By this al teration of the crystallizing process it is intended to diminish the expansion of internal metal opposed to the expansive forces of the burning powder. But I am told that the process of cooling defeats its object by vitiatiLg and weakening the internal crystalliza tion causing the metal to slough away rapidly at the vent hole. The French and particularly the English govern ments have expended a great deal of money in ef forts to improve th
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