CONCERNING BIG GUNS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 72, 24 March 1877, Page 4

CONCERNING BIG GUNS.

" While tbe Russians are strengthening tbeir works at Odessa with Krupp guns, the Turks are, it seems, states the Daily News, substituting the same modern weapons 'for the big cannon which for ages past have watched the Straits of the Dardanelles. Bigger than the biggest ' Woolwich Infant,' or tbe 100-ton pun of the Italians, these anoieut cannon still retain their former position as giants of ordnance, the calibre of the largest beiog something like 29m, while as our readers are aware, that of the Angio-Ilaliaa weapon is but 17. According to one of the best authorities on the subject, Major-General Lefioy, R.A., the present Governor of Bermuda/these monster cannon were cast as loug ago . as the 15th and 16th centuries, and are' fashioned entirely of bronze. The cannon-balls provided are of stone, and far from being useless and unmanageable, as one might well suppose such gigantic fire-arms to be, they have, it appears, several times been made ii_e of with considerable effect. Some of the weapons were employed agaiost Scutari, in Albania, by Mohammed IL, in 14.87, and we are told that duriog the eiege of that place, from -June 22 to July 21, no fewer thW 2,534 hu^e huge cannon balls were hurled agdinst the town. As General Le.roy has remarked in his interesting history of these; guns, the supply, of powder necessary to have carried on such a terrible bombardment must have been immense, while the quarrying and cutting of so many monster projectiles i_la task scarcely to be realised in these days. Travellers have given strange, accounts of the guns, whose ugly black muzzles are to be seen from the Straits, and marvellous legends are told as to tbeir terrible' might and distant range. But it is ia very quesionable, whether; they could bowl a shot for a thousand yards, even if the cannon were strong enough to resist a heavy charge. However, they certainly did some damage lo a flaet of ours which forced the passage of the Dardanelles in 1807, for on that occasion eight vessels were struck, and nearly a hundred men killed and wounded. Tbis was tbe last time tbey were used in action, and the replacement of them vow by Krupp guns shows that the Turks have' no" longer any faith in the unwieldy giants;; For some years past their number on the shore of the Dardanelles has been growing less, and a iittie while ego one was presented as a specimen to the British Government. When Bishop Pococke visited the spot in 1740, there were it seems, 42 in all of these huge weapons, and he quaintly says of tbem — 'They are always loaded wiitT'eione hall, ready to sink any ship that would offer to pass without coming' to anchor in order to be searched ; they firu likewise with ball, in answer to any ship that salutes the castle. As this does much damage where they fall, so ■ lands directly opposite commonly pay no rent.' "