finally, of floating batteries and
cannon-proof vessels. In No. 30, we have, however, a hint that the
marquis had studied the principles of revolving firearms, when he
speaks of four cannon discharging two hundred bullets each hour. That he
had, theoretically, at least, anticipated Colt, appears from

'No. LVIII.--How to make a pistol discharge a dozen times with one
loading, and without so much as once new priming requisite, _or to
change it out of one hand into the other_, or stop one's horse.'

I call attention to the words which I have italicized. It is well known
that the mere principle of revolving barrels in firearms was already
old, even when Worcester wrote. I have seen guns of the kind over three
hundred years old, and they are not uncommon in foreign museums. But it
would appear that the marquis was acquainted with the principle of the
self-cocking pistol. How else could he propose to discharge a gun a
dozen times, without changing it from one hand to another? And this, I
believe, was not known before his day. But how this could have been
conveniently carried out, without some application of detonating powders
in place of flint, steel, and gunpowder, I do not understand. That he
was very probably familiar with the application of such chemical
detonating agents has already been suggested. In another number, he
suggests the application of this principle to 'carbines.' So in No.
LXII, he proposes 'a way for a harquebuss, a crock, or ship musket, six
upon a carriage, shooting with such expedition as, without danger, one
may charge, level, and discharge them sixty times in a minute of an
hour, two or three together.' To which he adds the following:

'No. LXIV.--A seventh, tried and approved before the late king (of
ever blessed memory), and an hundred lords and commons, in a cannon
of eight inches and half a quarter, to shoot bullets of sixty-four
pounds weight, and twenty-four pounds of powder, twenty times in
six minutes; so clear from danger, that after all were discharged,
a pound of butter did not melt, being laid upon the cannon britch,
nor the green oil discoloured that was first anointed and used
between the barrel thereof, and the engine having never in it, nor
within six foot, but one charge at a time.'

Several improvements of this kind are suggested in the 'Century,' which
evidently involve different principles from that of the modern revol