This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1846. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... 220 CFIAFTER VII. ON THE SCIENCE OF GUNNERY. "Science begins at the point where mind dominates matter, where the attempt is made to subject the mass of experience to the scrutiny of reason. Science is mind brought into connection with nature."--Cosmos. The science of gunnery, on the large scale, owes a great deal to the ability of Robins and Hutton; for the manner in which the two simplified the principle, has left their names coupled with it in a way which never can be entirely forgotten. Previously to the researches of Robins, the theory of atmospheric resistance was but imperfectly surmised, and when he made his statements of the immense resistance the fluidity of the air offered to projectiles in a high state of velocity, they were treated as the idle chimeras of a speculative brain, and yet he only was enabled to estimate the real effects of the explosive nature and force of gunpowder to a very limited extent; indeed, so limited that Hutton, only twenty years subsequently, speaking of Robins' theory, says, " Mr. Robins and other authors, it may be said, have only guessed at, rather than determined. That ingenious philosopher, in a simple experiment truly showed that, by the firing of a parcel of gunpowder, a quantity of elastic air was disengaged, which, when confined in the space only occupied by the powder before it was fired, was found to be near 250 times stronger than the weight or elasticity of the common air. He then heated the same parcel of air to the degree of red hot iron, and found it in that temperature to be about four times as strong as before; whence he inferred, that the first strength of the inflamed fluid must be nearly 1000 times the pressure of the atmosphere. But this was merely guessing at the degree of heat in the inflamed fluid, and...