bold and plausible adventurer, aided by the profligacy of a parasite, the avarice and hypocrisy of a confessor, and a mother's complaisant familiarity with vice, achieves the triumph of making a gulled husband bring his own unwilling but too yielding wife to shame. The whole comedy is a study of stupidity and baseness acted on by roguery. About the power with which this picture of domestic immorality is presented there can be no question. But the perusal of the piece obliges us to ask ourselves whether the author's radical conception of human nature was not false. The same suspicion is forced upon us by the Principe. Did not Machiavelli leave good habit, as an essential ingredient of character, out of account? Men are not such absolute fools as Nicia, nor such compliant catspaws as Ligurio and Timoteo; women are not such weak instruments as Sostrata and Lucrezia. Somewhere, in actual life, the stress of craft and courage acting on the springs of human vice and weakness fails, unless the hero of the comedy or tragedy, Callimaco or Cesare, allows for the revolt of healthier instincts. Machiavelli does not seem to have calculated the force of this recoil. He speculates a world in which virtù, unscrupulous strength of character, shall deal successfully with frailty. This, we submit, was a deep-seated error in his theory of life, an error to which may be ascribed the numerous stumbling-blocks and rocks of offence in his more serious writings. Some time after the Mandragola, he composed a second comedy, entitled Clizia, which is even homelier and closer to the life of Florence than its predecessor. It contains incomparable studies of the Florentine housewife and her husband, a grave business-like citizen, who falls into the senile folly of a base intrigue. There remains a short piece without title, the Commedia in prosa, which, if it be Machiavelli's, as internal evidence of style sufficiently argues, might be accepted as a study for both the Clizia and the Mandragola. It seems written to expose the corruption of domestic life in Florence, and especially to satirize the friars in their familar part of gobetweens, tame cats, confessors and adulterers. Of Machiavelli's minor poems, sonnets, capitoli and carnival songs there is not much to say. Powerful as a comic playwright, he was not a poet in the proper sense of the term. The little novel of Belfagor claims a passing word, if only because of its celebrity. It is a good-humoured satire upon marriage, the devil being forced to admit that hell itself is preferable to his wife's company. That Machiavelli invented it to express the irritation of his own domestic life is a myth without foundation, The story has a medieval origin, and it was almost simultaneously treated in Italian by Machiavelli, Straparola and Giovanni Brevio. In the spring of 1526 Machiavelli was employed by Clement VII. to inspect the fortifications of Florence. He presented a report upon the subject, and in the summer of the same year received orders to attend Francesco Guicciardini, the pope's commissary of war in Lombardy. Guicciardini sent him in August to Cremona, to transact business with the Venetian provveditori. Later on in the autumn we find him once more with Guicciardini at Bologna. Thus the two great Italian historians of the 16th century, who had been friends for several years, were brought into relations of close intimacy. After another visit to Guicciardini in the spring of 1527, Machiavelli was sent by him to Civita Vecchia. It seemed that he was destined to be associated in the papal service with Clement's viceroy, and that a new period of diplomatic employment was opening for him. But soon after his return to Florence he fell ill. His son Piero said that he took medicine on the 20th of June which disagreed with him; and on the 22nd he died, having received the last offices of the Church. There is no foundation for the legend that he expired with profane sarcasms upon his lips. Yet we need not run into the opposite extreme, and try to fancy that Machiavelli, who had professed Paganism in his life, proved himself a believing Christian on his deathbed. That he left an unfavourable opinion among his fellow citizens is very decidedly recorded opinion among his fellow citizens is very decidedly recorded by the historian Varchi. The Principe, it seems, had already begun to prejudice the world against him; and we can readily believe that Varchi sententiously observes, that "it would have been better for him if nature had given him either a less powerful intellect or a mind of a more genial temper." There is in truth a something crude, unsympathetic, cynical in his mental attitude toward human nature, for which, even after the lapse of more than three centuries, we find it difficult to make allowance. The force of his intellect renders this want of geniality repulsive. We cannot help objecting that one who was so powerful could have been kindlier and sounder if he willed. We therefore do him the injustice of mistaking his infirmity for perversity. He was colour-blind to commonplace morality; and we are angry with him because he merged the hues of ethics in one grey monotone of politics. In person Machiavelli was of middle height, black-haired, with rather a small head, very bright eyes and slightly aquiline nose. His thin, close lips often broke into a smile of sarcasm. His activity was almost feverish. When unemployed in work or study he was not averse to the society of boon companions, gave himself readily to transient amours, and corresponded in a tone of cynical bad taste. At the same time he lived on terms of intimacy with worthy men. Varchi says that "in his conversation he was pleasant, obliging to his intimates, the friend of virtuous persons." Those who care to understand the contradictions of which such a character was capable should study his correspondence with Vettori. It would be unfair to charge what is repulsive in their letters wholly on the habits of the times, for wide familiarity with the published correspondence of similar men at the same epoch brings one (J. A. S.) acquainted with little that is so disagreeable. Among the many editions of Machiavelli's works the one in 8 vols., dated Italia, 1813, may be mentioned, and the more comprehensive ones published by A. Parenti (Florence, 1843) and by A. Usigli (Florence 1857). P. Fanfani and L. Passerini began another, which promised to be the most complete of all; but only 6 vols. were published (Florence, 1873-1877); the work contains many new and important documents on Machiavelli's life. The best biography is the standard work of Pasquale Villari, La Storia di Niccolò Machiavelli e de' suoi tempi (Florence, 1877-1882; latest ed., 1895; Eng. trans. by Linda Villari, London, 1892); in vol. ii. there is an exhaustive criticism of the various authors who have written on Machiavelli. See also T. Mundt, Niccolò Machiavelli und das System der modernen Politik (3rd ed., Berlin, 1867); E. Feuerlein, "Zur Machiavelli- Frage" in H. von Sybel's Histor. Zeitschrift (Munich, 1868); P. S. Mancini, Prelezioni con un saggio sul Machiavelli; F. Nitti, Machiavelli nella vita e nelle opere (Naples, 1876); O. Tomasini, La Vita e gli scritti di Niccolò Machiavelli (Turin, 1883); L. A. Burd, Il Principe, by Niccolò Machiavelli (Oxford, 1891); Lord Morley, Machiavelli (Romanes lecture, Oxford, 1897). The Cambridge Modern History, vol. i. (Cambridge, 1903), contains an essay on Machiavelli by L. A. Burd, with a very full biography. MACHICOLATION (from Fr. machicoulis), an opening between a wall and a parapet, formed by corbelling out the latter, so that the defenders might throw down stones, melted lead, &c., upon assailants below. MACHINE (through Fr. from Lat. form machina of Gr. unxavn), any device or apparatus for the application or modification of force to a specific purpose. The term "simple machine" is applied to the six so-called mechanical powersthe lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley, screw, and inclined plane. For machine-tools see TOOLS. The word machine was formerly applied to vehicles, such as stage-coaches, &c., and is still applied to carriages in Scotland; a survival of this use is in the term "bathing machine." Figuratively, the word is used of persons whose actions seem to be regulated according to a rigid and unchanging system. In politics, especially in America, machine is synonymous with party organization. A stage device of the ancient Greek drama gave rise to the proverbial expression, "the god from the machine," Lat. deus ex machina, for the disentangling and conclusion of a plot by supernatural interference or by some accident extraneous to the natural development of the story. When a god had to be brought on the stage he was floated down from above by a Yepavos (crane) or other machine (unxavh). Euripides has been reproached with an excessive use of the device, but it has been pointed out (A.E. Haigh, Tragic Drama of the Greeks, p. 245 seq.) that only in two plays (Orestes and Hippolytus) is the god brought on for the solution of the plot. In the others the god comes to deliver a kind of epilogue, describing the future story of the characters, or to introduce some account of a legend, institution, &c. MACHINE-GUN, a weapon designed to deliver a large number of bullets or small shells, either by volleys' or in very quick 1 The French term mitrailleuse, made famous by the War of 1870, reappears in other Latin tongues (e.g. Spanish ametralladora). It signifies a weapon which delivers a shower of small projectiles mitraille-grape or case shot), and has no special reference to its mechanical (hand or automatic) action. succession, at a high rate of fire. Formerly the mechanism of machine-guns was hand operated, but all modern weapons are automatic in action, the gas of the explosion or the force of recoil being utilized to lock and unlock the breech mechanism, to load the weapon and to eject the fired cartridge cases. The smaller types approximate to the "automatic rifle," which is expected to replace the magazine rifle as the arm of the infantryman. The large types, generically called "pompoms," fire a light artillery projectile, and are considered by many artillery experts as "the gun of the future." The medium type, which takes the ordinary rifle ammunition but is fired from various forms of carriage, is the ordinary machine-gun of to-day, and the present article deals mainly with this. HISTORICAL SKETCH Machine-guns of a primitive kind are found in the early history of gunpowder artillery, in the form of a grouping or binding of several small-calibre guns for purposes of a volley or a rapid succession of shots. The earliest field artillery (q.v.) was indeed chiefly designed to serve the purpose of a modern machine-gun, i.e. for a mechanical concentration of musketry. Infantry fire (till the development of the Spanish arquebus, about 1520) was almost ineffective, and the disintegration of the masses of pikes, preparatory to the decisive cavalry charge, had to be effected by guns of one sort or another (see also INFANTRY). Hence the cart with gonnes," although the prototype of the field gun of to-day was actually a primitive mitrailleuse. 66 Ribaudequins. 66 | gunners), it was still used for the defence of breaches in siege warfare. Diego Ufano, who wrote in the early years of the 17th century, describes it as a weapon consisting of five or six barrels fired simultaneously by a common lock, and mentions as a celebrated example the "Triquetraque of Rome" which had five barrels. Another writer, Hanzelet, describes amongst other devices a mitrailleuse of four barrels which was fired from the back of an ass or pony. But such weapons as these were more curious than useful. For work in the open field the musket came more and more to the front, its bullet became at least as formidable as that of an organ," and when it was necessary to obtain a concentrated fire on a narrow front arquebuses à croc were mounted for the nonce in groups of four to six. The organ" maintained a precarious existence, and is described by Montecucculi a century later, and one of twelve barrels figures in the list of military stores at Hesdin in 1689. But its fatal defect was that it was neither powerful enough to engage nor mobile enough to evade the hostile artillery. 66 Enthusiastic inventors, of course, produced many models of machine-gun in the strict sense of the word-i.e. a gun firing many charges, in volleys or in rapid succession, by a mechanical arrangement of the lock. Wilhelm Calthoff, a German employed by Louis XIII., produced arquebuses and muskets that fired six to eight shots per round, but his invention was a secret, and it seems to have been more of a magazine small arm than a machine-gun (1640). In 1701 a Lorrainer, Beaufort de Mirecourt, proposed a machine-gun which had as its purpose the augmentation of infantry-fire power, so as to place an inferior army on an equality with a superior. At this time inventors were so numerous and so embarrassing that the French grand master of artillery, St Hilaire, in 1703 wrote that he would be glad to have done with "ces sortes de gens à secrets," some of whom demanded a grant of compensation even when their experiments had failed. The machine-gun of the 17th and 18th centuries in fact possessed no advantage over contemporary field artillery, and the battalion gun in particular, which possessed the long ranging and battering power that its rival lacked, and was moreover more efficacious against living targets with its case-shot or grape. As compared with infantry fire, too, it was less effective and slower than the muskets of a well-drilled company. Rapid fire was easily arranged, but the rapid loading which would have compensated for other defects was unobtainable in the then existing state of gun-making. Thus a satisfactory machine-gun was not forthcoming until breech-loading had been, so to speak, rediscovered, that is until about 1860. At that time the tactical conditions of armament were peculiar. As regards artillery, the new (muzzle-loading) long Weapons of this sort were freely employed by the Hussites, who fought in laager formation (Wagenburg), but the fitting of two or more hand-guns or small culverins to a two-wheeled carriage garnished with spikes and scythe blades (like the ancient war-chariots) was somewhat older, for in 1382 the men of Ghent put into the field 200 "chars de canon" and in 1411 the Burgundian army is said to have had 2000 ribaudequins (meaning probably the weapons, not the carts, in this case). These were of course hardly more than carts with hand-gun men; in fact most armies in those days moved about in a hollow square or lozenge of wagons, and it was natural to fill the carts with the available gunners or archers. The method of breaking the enemy's" battles" with these carts was at first, in the ancient manner, to drive into and disorder the hostile ranks with the scythes. But they contained at least the germ of the modern machine-gun, for the tubes (cannes, canons) were connected by a train of powder and fired in volleys. As however field artillery improved (latter half of 15th | century), and a cannon-ball could be fired from a mobile carriage, the ribaudequin ceased to exist, its name being transferred to heavy hand-guns used as rampart pieces. The idea of the machine-range rifle sufficed, in the hand of determined infantry, to keep gun reappeared however in the 16th century. The weapons were now called" organs" (orgues), from the number of pipes or tubes that they contained. At first used (defensively) in the same way as the ribaudequins, i.e. as an effective addition to the military equipment of a war-cart, they were developed, in the early part of the 16th century, into a really formidable weapon for breaking the masses of the enemy, not by scythes and spikes but by fire. Fleurange's memoirs assign the credit of this to the famous gunner and engineer Pedro Navarro, who made two hundred weapons of a design of his own for Louis XII. These "were not more than two feet long, and fired fifty shots at a round," but nevertheless organs were relatively, rare in the armies of the 16th century, for the field artillery, though it grew in size and lost in mobility, had discovered the efficacy of case shot (then called "perdreaux ") against uncovered animate targets, and for work that was not sufficiently serious for the guns heavy arquebuses were employed. Infantry fire, too, was growing in power and importance. In 1551 a French army contained 21 guns and 150 arquebuses à croc and one pièce façon d'orgue. By about 1570 it had been found that when an " organ " was needed all that was necessary was to mount some "Organs." heavy arquebuses on a cart, and the organ, as a separate weapon, disappeared from the field, although under the name of mantelet (from the shield which protected the 66 guns out of case-shot range. This made the Napoleonic artillery attack an impossibility. At the same time the infantry rifle was a slow loader, and the augmentation of the volume of infantry fire attracted the attention of several inventors. The French, with their artillery traditions, regarded the machine-gun therefore as a method of restoring the lost superiority of the gunner, while the Americans, equally in accordance with traditions and local circumstances, regarded it as a musketry machine. The representative weapons evolved by each were the canon à balles, more commonly called mitrailleuse, and the Gatling gun. The declared purpose of the canon à balles was to replace the old artillery case-shot attack. Shrapnel, owing to the defects of the time-fuzes then available, had proved disappointing in the Italian War of 1859, and the gun itself, of the existing model, was not considered satisfactory. Napoleon III., a keen student of artillery, maintained a private arsenal and workshop at the château of Meudon1 and in 1866, in the alarm following upon 1 Meudon Château had long been used for military experiments. The peasantry credited it with mysterious and terrible secrets, asserting even that it contained a tannery of human skins, this tradition perhaps relating to the war balloon constructed there before the battle of Fleurus (1794). Reffye had also many nonmilitary tasks, such as the reproduction of a famous set of bas-reliefs, construction of aeroplanes, and the reconstruction of triremes and balistas. à Balles, 1866-1870. Königgrätz, he ordered Commandant Reffye (1821-1880), the artillery officer he had placed in charge of it, to produce a machine-gun. Reffye held that the work of a mitrailleuse should only begin where that of the infantry rifle ceased. The handbook to his gun issued to the French army in 1870 stated that it was to carry balls to distances that the infantry, and the The Canon artillery firing case, could not reach." The most suitable range was given as 1500-2000 yards against infantry in close order, 2000-2700 against artillery. As the French shrapnel (obus à balles) of these days was only used to give its peculiar case-shot effect between 550 and 1350 yards, and even so sparingly and without much confidence in its efficacy, it is clear that the canon à balles was intended to do the field-gun's work, except at (what were then) extreme field artillery ranges (2800 and above), in which case the ordinary gun with common shell (time or percussion) alone was used. Constructed to meet these conditions, the Reffye machine-gun in its final form resembled outwardly an ordinary field gun, with wheeled carriage, limber and four-horse team. The gun barrel was in reality a casing for 25 rifle barrels disposed around a common axis (the idea of obtaining sweeping effect by disposing the barrels slightly fan-wise had been tried and abandoned). The barrels were held together at intervals by wrought-iron plates. They were entirely open at the breech, a removable false breech containing the firing mechanism (the cartridge cases were of brass, solid-drawn, like those of the American and unlike those of the British Gatlings). This false breech, held in the firing position by a strong screwresembling roughly those of contemporary B.L. ordnance such as the Armstrong R. B. L.-consisted of a plate with 25 holes, which allowed the points of the strikers to pass through and reach the cartridges. The plate was turned by hand so that one striker was admitted at a time, the metal of the plate holding back the rest. To avoid any deflection of the bullet by the gases at an adjoining muzzle the barrels were fired in an irregular order. Each gun was provided with four chambers, which were loaded with their 25 cartridges apiece by a charger, and fixed to the breech one after the other as quickly as the manipulation of the powerful retaining screw permitted. The rates of fire were "slow," 3 rounds or 75 shots a minute, and" rapid," 5 rounds or 125 shots per minute. One advantage as against artillery that was claimed for the new weapon was rapidity of ranging. Any ordinary target, such as a hostile gun, would, it was expected, be accurately ranged by the mitrailleuse before it was ready to open fire for effect. The ordinary rifle bullet was employed, but to enhance the case-shot effect a heavy bullet made up in three parts, which broke asunder on discharge, was introduced in 1870 in the proportion of one round in nine. The weapon was sighted to 3000 metres (3300 yds.). The initial velocity was 1558 f.s.; and the weight of the gun 350 kg. (6.45 cwt.), of the carriage 371 kg. (6.86 cwt.); total behind the team, 1,485 kg. (27.1 cwt.). For an artillery effect, dispersion had to be combined with accuracy. The rifle-barrels when carefully set gave a very close grouping of shots on the target, and dispersion was obtained by traversing the gun during the firing of a round. When this was skilfully performed a front of 18 metres (about 20 yds.) at 1,000 metres range was thoroughly swept by the cone of bullets. The design and manufacture of these mitrailleuses under the personal orders and at the expense of the emperor enabled the French authorities to keep their new weapon most secret. Even though, after a time, mitrailleuses were constructed by scores, and could therefore no longer be charged to a "sundry or 66 petty cash" account in the budget, secrecy was still maintained. The pieces were taken about, muffled in tarpaulins, by by-ways and footpaths. In 1869, two years after the definitive adoption of the weapon, only a few artillery captains were instructed in its mechanism; the non-commissioned officers who had to handle the gun in war were called up for practice in July 1870, when Major Reffye's energies were too much absorbed in turning out the material so urgently demanded to allow him to devote himself to their instruction. The natural consequence was that the mitrailleuses were taken into battle by officers and men of whom nine-tenths had never seen them fire one round of live cartridges. The purpose of this fatal secrecy was the maintenance of prestige. No details were given, but it was confidently announced that war would be revolutionized. One foreign officer only, Major Fosbery, R.A. (see R.U.S.I. Journal, v. xiii.), penetrated the secret, and he felt himself bound in honour to keep it to himself, not even communicating it to the War Office. But public attention was only too fully aroused by these mysterious prophecies. "The mitrailleuse paid dearly This for its fame." The Prussians, who had examined mitrailleuses of the Gatling or infantry type, were well aware that the artillery machine-gun was at the least a most formidable opponent. They therefore ostentatiously rejected the Gatling gun, taught their troops that the new weapons were in the nature of scientific toys, and secretly made up their minds to turn the whole weight of their guns on to the mitrailleuse whenever and wherever it appeared on the field, and so to overwhelm it at once. policy they carried into effect in the War of 1870; and although on occasions the new weapon rendered excellent service, in general it cruelly disappointed the over-high hopes of its admirers. And thus, although the Gatling and similar types of gun were employed to a slight extent by both sides in the later stage of the war, machine-guns, as a class of armament for civilized warfare, practically disappeared. As a good deal of criticism-after the event-has been levelled at the French for their "improper use of the machine-gun as a substitute for artillery," it is necessary to give some summary of the ideas and rules which were inspired by the inventor or dictated by the authorities as to its tactical employment. The first principle laid down was that the gun should not be employed within the zone of the infantry fight. Officers commanding batteries were explicitly warned against infantry divisional generals who would certainly attempt to put the batteries, by sections, amongst the infantry. The second principle was that the mitrailleuses were to share the work of the guns, the latter battering obstacles with common shell, and the former being employed against troops in the open, and especially to cover and support the infantry advance. This tendency to classify the rôles of the artillery and to tell off the batteries each in its special task has reappeared in the French, and to a mo e limited extent in the British, field artillery of to-day (the Germans alone resolutely opposing the idea of subdivision). The mitrailleuse of 1870 was, in fact, intended to do what the perfected Shrapnel of 1910 does, to transfer the case-shot attack to longer ranges. But, as we have seen, secrecy had prevented any general spread of knowledge as to the uses to which the canon à balles was to be put, and consequently, after a few weeks of the war, we find Reffye complaining that the machine-guns were being used by their battery commanders "in a perfectly idiotic fashion. They are only good at a great distance and when used in masses, and they are being employed at close quarters like a rifle." The officers in the field, however, held that it was foolish to pit the mitrailleuse against the gun, which had a longer range, and exerted themselves to use it as an infantry weapon, a concentrated company, for which, unlike the Gatlings of 1870 and the machine-guns of to-day, it was never designed. As to which was right in the controversy it is impossible to dogmatize and needless to argue. Very different was the Gatling gun, the invention of Richard Jordan Gatling (1818-1903), which came into existence and was to a slight extent used in the field in the latter years of the American Civil War,1 and also to a still slighter extent by the Bavarians and the French in the latter part of the war of 1870. This was distinctively an infantry type weapon, a sort of revolving rifle, the ten barrels of which were set around an axis, the revolving mechanism. This weapon had a long reign, and was used side by side with the latest automatic machine gun in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The following account of the old British service Gatling (fig. 1), as used in in the article "Gun-making," Ency. Brit. 9th ed. the Egyptian and Sudanese campaigns, is condensed from that and fired in turn when brought into position by Gatling Gun. A block of ten barrels is secured round an axis, which is fixed in a frame a a. On turning the handle h (fig. 2) the spindle g g causes the worm f to act on the pinion w, making the axis and barrels revolve. A drum T (figs. I and 4) is placed on the top at the breech end of the barrels over a hopper, through a slot in which the cartridges drop into the carrier (fig. 3). The construction of the lock is it must be understood, represents the circular construction opened shown in fig. 4. A A A A is a cam, sloping as in the drawing, which, out and laid flat. As the barrels, carrier and locks revolve the slope of the cam forces the locks forward and backward alternately. At position I. the cartridge has just fallen into the carrier, the lock and bolt are completely withdrawn, At positions II., III., IV., the cam is forcing them forward, so that the bolt pushes the cartridge into the barrel. At IV. the cocking cam R begins to compress the spiral spring, releasing it at V. Position VI. shows the cartridge just after firing; the extractor is clutching the base of the cartridge 1 A machine-gun of the artillery or volley type, called the "Requa battery," which had its barrels disposed fan-wise, was also used in the Civil War. their campaigns against the Mahdists. But the Gatling had many advantages over its newer rivals as regards simplicity and strength. Theodore Roosevelt, who commanded sections of both types in the Spanish-American War, speaks with enthusiasm of the old-fashioned weapon1 while somewhat disparaging the Colt automatic. The Gardner was another type which had a certain vogue2 and was used by the British in savage warfare. But, next to Gun. In this weapon the barrels are placed horizontally, and have no springs, one of each corresponding to each barrel, moves Nordenfeldt movement. A box containing the locks, bolts, strikers and spiral straight backwards and forwards when worked by the handle of the lever on the right. When the box is drawn back the cartridges fall from the holder on the top into the carriers simultaneously. When the box is pushed forward the bolts spiral springs, the lever releases the catches one after the other at push the cartridges into the barrel, cocking-catches compress the very minute intervals of time, and the cartridges are fired in rapid the Gatling, the most important of the hand-operated machine guns was the Nordenfeldt, which was principally designed for naval use about the time when torpedo-boats were beginning to be regarded as dangerous antagonists. 1 The U.S. pattern Gatling hardly differed except in details from the model, above described, of twenty years earlier. The drum had been set horizontally instead of vertically and improved in details, and a "gravity feed," a tall vertical charger, was also used. The barrels were surrounded with a light casing. Tests made of the improved Gatling showed that the use of only one barrel at a time prevented overheating. On one trial 63,000 rounds were fired without a jam, and without stopping to clean the barrels. Smokeless powder and the modern cartridge case were of course used. The following particulars may be given of the 2-barrelled Gardner and 3-barrelled Nordenfeldt (land service) converted to take the 303 cartridge: Weight, 92 and 110 b respectively; parapet mounting in each case 168 b; rate of fire of Gardner about 250 rounds per minute, of the Nordenfeld't about 350. A few of these guns are still used in fortresses and coast defences. 41-44, Parts of hand-lever; 45-49, Traversing action; 50-55, Elevating and trailing action; 56, 57. Hopper and slide. succession. In this piece, careful aim can be taken from a moving platform, and at the right moment the barrels can be fired at the object almost simultaneously. PRESENT DAY MACHINE-GUNS Hitherto we have been dealing with weapons worked by handpower applied to a lever or winch-handle, the motion of this lever being translated by suitable mechanism into those by which the cartridges are loaded, fired, extracted and ejected-the cycle continuing as long as the lever is worked and there are cartridges in the "hoppers" which feed the gun. In the modern "automatic" machine-gun, moreover, the loading, firing, extracting and ejecting are all performed automatically by the gun itself, either by the recoil of its barrel, or by a small portion of the hole in the barrel near the muzzle. The following details of gases of explosion being allowed to escape through a minute the British Maxim, Hotchkiss and Colt types are reproduced from the article "Machine-guns," Ency. Brit. 10th ed.. |