The urgent need for practical information on the important subject of Gunnery is evinced by the numerous patents taken out during the last few years, most of which have fallen still-born, through deficient practical science on the part of the inventors. My aim in producing this book has been to point out the errors into which many ingenious inventors have fallen, and to show how similar failures may be avoided in future, by indicating the only right road to improvement in Gunnery, -the strict observance of scientific principles in every old process and in all new inventions: for it is to the ignorance or neglect of the principles of the science that failures in Gunnery are due