wrought-iron band, has found it to his advantage to adopt the Rodman method of casting for his two hundred and three hundred pounders. Another great improvement in the United States sea-coast system, has been the introduction of the new-pattern wroughtiron carriage. Greater durability, compactness, and (what is of far more importance with these enormous guns) extraordinary facility in manoeuvring, are the results of this improvement. To Captain Benton, of the United States Ordnance Corps, is due the credit of the original idea, and the design and manufacture of the first carriage of this sort ever introduced into the United States service; and to Majors Dyer and Rodman, those modifications and improvements which render these carriages the models of their kind. While rifle sea-coast guns give vastly increased accuracy, range, and penetration at the higher elevations, the effect upon armored vessels of their projectiles of relatively smaller diameter, is very much less destructive than the smashing shock of the immense iron spheres projected from the thirteen, the fif teen, or the twenty inch. There is no longer any question of the fact, that the introduction of guns which project such enormous spheres of iron have restored to forts their pristine superiority over ships. No seagoing armored vessel can withstand the shock of a fifteen-inch shot; and it is believed that a thirteen-inch, or even a ten-inch, solid shot will be found to be quite as effective. It is therefore safe to assert, that our harbors defended by forts armed with such guns, and having the advantage of artificial submarine obstructions, are securely barred against any ship that can cross the ocean. The wreck produced by the impact of these mighty spheres will set at defiance the most energetic efforts of ships'pumps or ship-carpenters' plugs; and, as in the case of the brief but eloquent duel of the Weehawken and the Atlanta, the men of which latter vessel were driven below from their guns and could not be induced to return to them, it produces a moral effect as irresistible as it is fatal. Probably this brief summary of the United States Artillery cannot be better closed than by appending the comments of one of the bitterest of English prints on our artillery operations at Charleston. This hitherto sharp critic upon every thing American says, "The Swamp Angel,' as the Federals call the big gun of General Gilmore, has surely bellowed loud enough at Sumter to wake up some of our critics at home to what is a fact in despite of them. As they have under-estimated the civil contest, so they have overlooked the Titanic character of the military duel, peddling and muddling over strategics on the map, and blind, meanwhile, to the revolution which these giant combatants are accomplishing in the art of warfare. If the Ame ricans are vain of being 'big,' why not do them the justice of confessing that they attain that adjective, in their contentions, their sufferings, and their engines and methods of warfare? Twice in the course of this two years' struggle they have altered the complexion of the science of destruction,-once on the water, and once on land. The Monitor and Merrimack confessedly initiated a new era in naval tactics. The plates of both are hardly rusted by the salt water into which they went down so soon; but already every country that pretends to keep the sea armed is fitting out vessels after their kind. Now it is a revolution in the art of attack by battery and defence by battlements, which these energetic fighters have developed. Sumter is down,breached and shattered into such a ruin that hardly one stone stands upon another. And this, after repeated failure with such artillery as could be made to float aboard ship, has been accomplished by enormous cannon fixed on a land-battery, discharging bolts of two hundred pounds' weight at a range of four thousand four hundred yards. Six hundred of these Olympian thunderbolts were hurled across this interval upon the walls and parapets of Sumter during the course of three days, and with such deadly accuracy that the proud keystone fortress of Charleston Harbor withered under them; and an eye-witness writes, that a mouldy cheese fired at for a month with pistols could not present a more forlorn appearance than Fort Sumter at the close of the bombardment. No arsenal is safe, no empire secure, which is too proud to study this lesson. Nevertheless, what is chiefly remarkable about the destruction of Sumter is the range at which it was accomplished, and the precision of the fire by which these huge bolts were flung. The two hundred pounders are said to have gone through and through, till the farther channel of the fort could be seen between the gaping rents and fissures of the double wall. Neither Mr. Whitworth nor Sir William Armstrong has shown us any thing in range and accuracy like this. The American officers have, first in their profession, laid, and kept at work throughout three days, siege-guns the like of which for weight were last used when Mahomet besieged Constantinople. We do not hesitate to say that our Spithead forts must be reconsidered, as to structure and position, if our enemies, whoever they may be, can be made to fire these American guns from their floating batteries." A MODERN FABLE, WITH AN INTERNATIONAL MORAL. RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO NAPOLEON'S MONARCHS IN COUNCIL, SHOULD THEY EVER MEET. Nor a great number of years ago, a fierce Eagle built her nest on a magnificent island, watered by two oceans, traversed by high mountain-ridges, on the peaks of which her young might build their eyries, and furrowed by great rivers from which they might take their prey. She was a noble bird,-sometimes a little inclined, in the language of that country, "to spread herself," but always, on the whole, just and brave. On this island she nurtured her fierce brood, teaching them lofty flights, until the air was dark with their wings, and all the humbler animals on land and sea, on mountain and river, did the great Eagle and her eaglets reverence. But on other islands, not very far distant, dwelt other beasts in good comfortable homes and dens, where they and their progenitors had likewise lorded it over the common herd for centuries. When the Eagles had become very numerous and powerful in their beautiful island over the seas, these other beasts became jealous, and often councilled together to divide the Eagle-land and bring the proud birds of the sun under their subjection; but, as yet, they had councilled long in vain. Chief among these was a sullen old Bull, which had tossed and torn many other animals, especially the weaker ones. He had gored Bengal tigers; had placed castles on elephants, making them his beasts of burden; and had, by fear or by force, caused to tremble before him Shanghai chickens, Bramaputra fowls, and all those creatures which the Bramins do reverence. Once also, while the Eagle was building her first nest, had this old sinner gone goring and pawing through her land; but, with talons and beak, the Eagle had fairly driven him out, in a most undignified gallop; and so, affecting to be satisfied, he only awaited another opportunity. On a shadowy pretext, he had tried again. This time he put on the Lion's hide, and called himself a lion; but his horns showed, and his cloven hoof, and great was the laughter when he was known to be that same old Bull. He tried to roar, but it was the low of the Bull still; and so the Eagle, gathering her eaglets, now well grown, from all over the land, soon drove him away as before, and he was fain to let her alone once more, until a better opportunity should arise. But the Eagles now grew so strong, that he pawed the earth in anger to think that such an opportunity had gone by forever. At length, alas, alas! the great colony of Eagles fell to quar relling among themselves. Some of them thought they no longer had need of their cherishing mother: each became arrogantly proud of his own eyrie. In the warmer lands of that beautiful country, which extended from Northern snows to equinoctial heats, the Eagles had subdued and held in bondage the Ravens and Crows (the grandfather of the latter was the famous James), and, themselves tired of hunting and fishing, they made these darker birds do them such menial service,-tracking the forests for game, sounding the streams for fish, while the Eagles remained idle and enervate at home, and gorged the easily-gotten prey in their luxurious and splendid nests. Then said the Eagles of the North, and all the good Eagles everywhere, "Live as you please, but do not bring the Ravens and the Crows among us, to hunt and fish for us." But the tropical Eagles would, and threatened all Eagledom unless it was allowed; and so they came to blows, and sad was the carnage. There were empurpled beaks, talons filled with flesh and feathers; the mountain fastnesses were choked with the dying birds, and the great rivers flowed red with royal eagle blood. Ah, then the old Bull thought he saw the chance for which he had so long waited! And there was great joy in the pastures where he was feeding, with Alderneys, Devons, and Durhams around him. Just opposite, on the other bank of a rill, were the grounds in which a Game-cock lorded it over a spacious barnyard of rainbow-colored fowls, -a Game-cock who claimed to be of the dark Corsican breed, which, however, many doubted. Alike had the Bull and the Cock heard the fierce screams of the contending Eagles across the distant waters; and the Bull lowed to the Cock a signal low, which said, "Don't you hear?" and the Cock, jumping upon the vane of the great granary,-for he was the original weather-cock,-crowed with a clear voice, which seemed to say, "Now's the chance for us! Now's the chance for us!" And then, fluttering down, he ran to the borders of the brook to meet the Bull, and there they talked as of old, and laid their friendly plans. Then the Cock ran back to his roost, and put on his spurs, and flew across the waters,whither? In a country adjacent to that of the Eagles was another narrow strip, inhabited by a less lordly race, degenerate Eagles, that fed on serpents, and everywhere might one be seen with a serpent writhing in its beak. To this country flew the Cock, and after him swam the Bull, and other Bulls and Merino Sheep from Sierran mountains, and forthwith, without preamble or peroration, they attacked the serpent-Eagles, and said, "We will give you a king of our own choosing;" and although the poor birds dropped their serpents, and fought with beak and talons against the cruel attack, they were forced to yield. Then said the Game-cock, "We are now ready to take part in the fight of the great Eagles." And the ancient Bull at first cried "Bravo!" and then-funny, cautious fellow that he always was, notwithstanding his noise and his lion's hide-he backed out, waiting for his chance, which, he said, had not yet come; for it happened that, just then, the great Eagles of the North had fear fully beaten the Tropical birds, who had subjugated the Ravens and Crows, and seemed likely to conquer them and repossess their whole land. Thus matters stood, when, at this delicate juncture, a great Bear from the North,-URSA MAJOR was his name,-the most regal specimen of Arctic beasts, heard, even among his Boreal snows, the din of the contending hosts, and, rousing himself from his lethargy, he said, "I will go down and see the sport." He made little noise, but he wandered along, setting at liberty millions of the caged animals which his progenitors had held in bondage, and then, reaching the shore, he threw his heavy carcass into the great sea, and swam over to the Eagles' country. He landed, and, as he shook the water from his huge sides, he said, "What's the row? Ah, I see! I'll be your friend: will you be mine?" And the Eagles flew together with a joyous scream to greet him, and hailed him as a right imperial beast. They gave him magnificent ice-palaces to live in,-for mere heat, you know, would have killed him,-and they offered him banquets not only of seal and walrus, but of barbacued steers of that same old Bull breed, and dainty capons which had come out of the loins of that very Game-cock "that crowed in the morn;" and he ate, and was filled; and therefore the Bull and the Cock, who hated him and had fought with him before, at the City of Augustus, on the sea whose waters are dark, kept far aloof from the feast, and fumed and swore, and bit their hoofs and feathers for rage. And then spake the great Bear: "You have my everlasting thanks. When the Bull and the Cock molest you, or threaten it, give but one fierce scream, and I shall hear it even in the depths of my winter-sleep, and I will arise and come to your aid. Conquer your prodigals and parricides in your own way, and as soon as you can; and be the Eagle land, the great, powerful, United land, forever!" Then were heard loud shouts for the Eagle and for the Bear; and the voice of the shouting multitude lingered upon the word "forever!" PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY CONTAINING THE MORAL. Moral for the Bull.-"Look before you leap." Moral for the Cock.-"Every cock to his own dunghill." |