Page 5 Advertisements Column 1

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 11, 2 December 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

The Velocity of a Cankon Ball. — The following is from the weekly Alta California, of September 5 : — A trial of the " Ferris Gun," to test the initial ye locity of its shot, took place at West Point on the 15th and 1 7th of July, in presence of Captain S. V. Benet of the United Stares Army, and one of the best ordnance officers in America. On the first shot the instrument (the electrobelist pendulum) being in perfect order, gave a velocity of twenty-two hundred feet per second, the highest velocity ever attained by any cannon in th,e world. Whith worth once claimed for one of his guns, built for this special purpose, and using a spherical shot, two thousand feet per second, but some English writers deny to him this hijrh rate. The highest velocity ever obtained in this country before, was by Captain Benet at West Peint, using a spherical shot in a rifled Parrot gun, and this was one thousand eight hundred feet per second. The ordinary velocity of the best cannon in this country or in England is from one thousand to one thousand three hundred feet per second. Alter the first shot on the 15th. a slight derangement of the targets connected with the instruments— which could not, from lhe nature of the experiments, be constantly under the eye of Captain Benet — prevented a record of the subsequent firing. On the 17th the firing was renewed, and different velocities obtained, to one thousand seven hundred and upwards. The shot used were conical, and weighed, one of the sizes 40 ounces, and the other 48 ounces. The weight of the powder used was in all cases 24 ounces. The chamber of the gun will hold 27 ounces. The size of the bore is 1$ inches. The penetration of this gun, according to lhe diameter of the bore, is greater than any other cannon ever built.