s.

Now the musket is an extremely formidable weapon, and has, perhaps,
been the greatest single contributor to the victory of civilization
over barbarism, and order over anarchy, that has ever existed up to
the present time. But the enormous advances in engineering, including
ordnance, during the last fifty years, have reduced enormously the
relative value of the musket. Remembering that energy, or the ability
to do work, is expressed by the formula: E=1/2 MV^2, remembering
that the projectile of the modern 12-inch gun starts at about 2,900
f. s. velocity and weighs 867 pounds, while the bullet of a musket
weighs only 150 grains and starts with a velocity of 2,700 feet
per second, we see that the energy of the 12-inch projectile is
about 47,000 times that of the bullet on leaving the muzzle. But
after the bullet has gone, say 5,000 yards, its energy has fallen
to zero, while the energy of the 12-inch projectile is nearly the
same as when it started.

While it would be truthful, therefore, to say that the energy of
the 12-inch gun within 5,000 yards is greater than that of 47,000
muskets, it would also be truthful to say that outside of 5,000
yards, millions of muskets would not be equal to one 12-inch gun.

Not only is the 12-inch gun a weapon incomparably great, compared
with the musket, but when placed in a naval ship, it possesses a
portability which, while not an attribute of the gun itself, is
an attribute of the combination of gun and ship, and a distinct
attribute of naval power. A 12-inch gun placed in a fort may be
just as good as a like gun placed in a ship, but it has no power
to exert its power usefully unless some enemy comes where the gun
can hit it. And when one searches the annals of history for the
records of whatever fighting forts have done, he finds that they
have been able to do very little. But a 12-inch gun placed in a
man-of-war can be taken where it is needed, and recent history
shows that naval 12-inch guns, modern though they are, have already
done effective work in war.

Not only are 12-inch guns powerful and portable, but modern mechanical
science has succeeded in so placing them in our ships that they can
be handled with a precision, quickness, and delicacy that have
no superior in any other branch of engineering. While granting
the difficulty of an exact comparison, I feel no hesitation in
affirming that the greatest triumph of the engineering art in handling
heavy masses is to be f