The powerful aid of the _Times_ is “almost success;” though in this instance it has signally failed, the boasted accuracy there spoken of not having been yet obtained. This has no doubt arisen in part from the fact that Mr. Whitworth’s great mechanical knowledge would not suffice to make him _au fait_ at the compound science of gunnery. His “polygonal spiral bore of uniform pitch, more rapid than could be obtained by grooves,” is after all only an experimental gun, not sufficiently developed as yet for practical utility. Still, the writer already alluded to has favoured us with the following remarks in the _Times_:
“Moreover, Mr. Whitworth has discovered in the course of his experiments, that according to the quickness of the turn in the polygon is the length of the projectile that may be fired; so that 24 lb. and 48 lb. shot have been sent to extraordinary ranges with half the usual charge of powder, from an ordinary 12-pounder howitzer. Here, then, is at once the solution of the whole question which has troubled the brains of so many inventors, real or pretended, for years. The artilleryman at one stride resumes the relative position to the soldier of the line which the Enfield rifle had so perilously deprived him of, and this mechanical country, after finding herself on the level of France, Russia, and other European States, is once more, as during the Peninsular campaigns, enabled to assert her natural superiority in the manufacture of cannon. We trust that no petty jealousies on the part of narrow-minded officials will be allowed to interfere with the course of Mr. Whitworth’s experiments, and that the encouragement which he is now receiving from the Minister at War and the Commander-in-Chief will enable him, at no remote date, to realise for the benefit of the army and the nation that revolution in gunnery which the results already obtained by him promise.”
Report says that 25,000_l._ is the amount of encouragement Mr. Whitworth has received from the Minister of War and the Commander-in-Chief; an adequate sum with which to conduct such an experiment, but not sufficient to insure success.
Of the success of Mr. Whitworth’s polygonal projectile, on a large scale, none need speculate, for the principle is self-destructive.