Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/335

Rh gunnery. To decide that an army or a navy should have nothing but breech-loaders, or nothing but muzzle loaders, would be to make a fetich of uniformity ; there is plenty of room for both systems. With regard to heavy fortress and ship guns, it is easy to suggest positions where it will probably be found that one system has a decided advantage over the other. Thus, taking the sea service first, in turrets the muzzle-loader is preferable. The loading can be performed with great facility outside the ports, and a turret of a given diameter will house a pair of bigger guns than when the loading has to be done inside at the breech, unless some method of exterior loading can be devised for the breech-loaders also. For broadside guns, on the other hand, it seems equally clear that breech-loading has the advantage, as muzzle-loaders have to be run in so far to permit loading that they must be too short for ballistic ex cellence. For a small gun placed on a slide in the bow of a boat, it appears far more convenient to load at the breech. For those gunboats in which the vessel is simply the gun carriage and the line of fire is given by the helm, loading at the muzzle from below deck offers great advantages. Land service heavy guns, mounted on sea fronts for the protection of harbours, &c., present a great variety of con ditions. In some cases the rocks or ground on which the battery is erected have such a form that a heavy gun loaded at the breech could be used where only a comparatively small one could be loaded at the muzzle. Sometimes a turret can be erected with loading gear outside, and then the conditions are reversed. In the case of very heavy guns, which once in situ are not intended ever to be moved, the argument from uniformity loses much of its cogency ; and the circumstances of every gun position could therefore be separately considered. The guns and howitzers arming land fronts of fortresses should follow the same rule as given for the siege train, the conditions of service in battery being very similar. The long pieces should be breech loaders, the short ones muzzle-loaders. Wherever the com parative advantages of breech-loading and muzzle-loading are nearly equal, the decision should be in favour of the muzzle-loaders as possessing the inherent advantages of simplicity, solidity, and cheapness.

Conclusion.—The science of gunnery has received so many developments of late years, and is even now progressing so rapidly, that it is impossible to do justice to the subject within the limits of an article. The reader who wishes for more minute details, and who would study any part of the science thoroughly, is recommended to consult the following list of works:—

1em 1em 1em 1em 1em

1em  

 GUNNY. This name is applied to cloth or bags made of jute, and is supposed to be derived from gang a or gania of Rumphius, or from yonia, a vernacular name of the Crotolaria juncea a plant common in Madras. One of the first notices of the term itself is to be found in Knox s Ceylon, in which he says : &quot; The filaments at the bottom of the stem [coir from the cocoa-nut husk (Cocos nucifera)] may be made into a coarse cloth called gunny, which is used for bags and similar purposes.&quot; is the fibre of two species of Oorchorus, C. capsularis and G. olitoriut, one species of which, probably the latter, has long been known as the Jew s mallow, from the fact that the leaves have long been used in Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia as a potherb. The seeds of the jute plant are sown in April or May and the plant is cut down close to the roots just before flowering. The tops are then clipped off and the stems made into bundles, which are placed in tanks or ditches and covered with turf or other heavy substance.; to keep the bundles under water. Here they are watched anxiously day by day till the fibre separates easily from the central woody portion. The period of retching or soaking takes from eight to ten days ; if allowed to remain too long, the fibre rapidly decays. In drying also the fibre generally becomes of a deeper colour. When the fibre is ready for manipulation, the operator descends into the tank or ditch, and taking 10 to 15 bundles, strips off the barky fibre and washes thoroughly, and by a dexterous movement of the wrist spreads and separates the fibres over the surface of the water. The fibre soon becomes clean, and is hung over bamboo framework to dry. The fibre thus obtained is fine, long, and silky, but the short staple and the portion near the root held in the hand of the operator during wash ing, which frequently has bark attached, are the portions generally selected to make gunny bags or cloth of. The kind of cloth known as gunny, tat, choti, &c., is woven in various lengths and widths for use as bedding, bags, &c., and formerly, more than at present, every man, woman, and child, boatmen, husbandmen, and others, in their spare moments, distaff in hand, wove gunny cloth. Even the Hindu widow, saved from death and despised by all, made her life less miserable by making gunny cloth, and thus rendering herself to an extent independent of her family. On the eastern frontier women are clothed in it, and the poor cover themselves with it at night. In the Malayan Archipelago it is no unusual sight to see a poor Chinese coolie with a dress made of gunny cloth. The great and most important use, however, to which gunny cloth is applied is in making bags wherein to pack rice, linseed, sugar, cotton, and other products for shipment. As soon as this cheap, strong, and serviceable material became known, the manufacture speedily assumed enormous proportions, and vast quantities of jute were imported into Dundee for the manufacture of gunny bags and cloth alone. The Dundee mills, in the early period of this trade, had only Indian hand-woven gunnies to compete with. The introduction of the latest machinery of the most approved patterns into Bengal, the chief seat of this industry in India, has, however, had the effect of giving India the opportunity of competing with the Dundee mills on advan- 