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We hope that the subject of cast-iron ordnance will receive the special attention of the Commission. We are persuaded that cast-iron may be produced of much greater strength than has hitherto been attained; and till its maximum power has been ascertained it is unwise to proceed in the expensive and tedious manufacture of wrought-iron ordnance. When some of the guns taken in the Crimea were examined in this country, and were found to be of extraordinary toughness, it was asked why we had no such ordnance, and the reply was, 'that we had no such iron.' This is not, or at least need not be, the case. Let the Government resume the foundry operations at Woolwich which it prematurely abandoned, and take the place which it ought to hold as leader in all efforts for improving the national defences. Let it name the test it proposes, and invite the iron-masters to compete for the supply of the material. We are confident that a quality of iron will soon be attained which for ordnance purposes will equal the produce of Sweden or Russia. It is impossible to say to what extent our manufacturers-that portion of them, we mean, whose materials permit them to do so-can yet retrace their steps and return to the cold-blast. But it is the public that must give the first impulsion to this improvement. The iron-masters can only act in obedience to the laws which regulate all commercial transactions. When the public are sufficiently enlightened to discover that the only cheap iron is that which will answer its purpose, the remedy is in their own hands. Supply will follow demand.

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ERRATUM IN PART OF FIRST EDITION. Page 121, line 24 from top, for 'inferior' read 'superior.'

ADDENDUM TO NOTE, p. 276.
Lat, 'Omnino comprobat.'

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