improvement was the
invention of the rifle barrel. It is mentioned by Pere Daniel, who wrote
in 1693, as being then well known; but the time and place of its origin
has never been ascertained. It was first employed as a military weapon
by the Americans, in the Revolutionary war, and it is in their hands
that it acquired its world-wide reputation.

It would be impossible, in an article like the present, to detail all
the various attempts which have been made, during the last half century,
to increase the efficiency of the rifle. The efforts of scientific men
and mechanics have been constantly directed towards the invention of a
gun which should fire, with the greatest possible rapidity, a number of
times without reloading, and which should possess the indispensable
requisites of safety, durability, and simplicity, both in construction
and in use. Hitherto no invention has combined these advantages in a
sufficient degree to supplant the common rifle.

In our opinion, these ends are all most simply and beautifully attained
by the invention of Mr. Jennings. But of this our readers will be able
to judge for themselves, by the above engravings and the directions for
its use.

[Illustration: CARTRIDGES AND MACHINERY OF JENNINGS'S RIFLES.]

Fill the magazine, on the top of the breech, with percussion pills or
primings, and the tube, under the barrel, with the hollow cartridges
containing gunpowder. Of these cartridges the tube will hold
twenty-four. Place the forefinger in the ring which forms the end of the
lever, _e_, and the thumb on the hammer, elevating the muzzle
sufficiently to let the cartridge nearest the breech slip, by its
gravity, into the carrier _d_; swing the lever forward, and raise the
hammer which moves the breech-pin back, and the carrier up, placing the
cartridge level with the barrel; pull the lever back, and thus force the
breech-pin forward, and shove the cartridge into the barrel, by which
motion a percussion priming is taken from the magazine by means of the
priming-rack _c_, revolving the pinion which forms the bottom of the
magazine, and it also throws up the toggle _a_, behind the breech-pin,
thus placing the piece in the condition to be discharged by a simply
upward pressure of the finger in the ring. After the discharge release
the pressure and repeat the process.

In conclusion, the reader is invited to look at the engraving we have
given of the first gun, and to compare it with the offsprin