18 FEW EXPERIMENTS TRACT 3

/ ' ' ' f '

Ball’s

Powder’s

wt

diam

Recoil

Veloc.

wt

ht

oz dr

inches

gun

ball

4

3*4

15 2

1-87

148

1225

« *

16 2

T92

154

1244

• •

16 14

T97

165

1346

8

5-9

15 2

1-87

239

1662

• •

16 3

1-92

249

1728

• •

16 14

1-97

262

1815

Here the decrease of the velocity is uniformly observablewith the decrease of weight in the ball, and that in a veryconsiderable degree, instead of increasing, which it oughtto do, if the windage were the - same, or the balls had thesame diameter, and that in the reciprocal subduplicateratio of the weight of the ball. Now that ratio is theratio of to V16£, or of 11 to 11 -^.. Therefore, as

11 : 11 -jZ,. : : 1346 : 1424 the velocity the least ball wouldhave had, if its diameter had been equal to the heaviest.But its velocity was actually no more than 1225 ; and there-fore the difference 199 , or 7 of the whole, or ^ of theexperimented velocity, is the velocity lost by the differenceof windage; though this difference was only p* of an inch, or^ of the caliber, which is no more than the usual windage al-lowed in service. But the force, or inflamed powder, lost bythe same cause, will be 7 , or a double part of the velocity, be-cause the velocity is as the square-root of the force or quantityof powder. Hence then, in charges with 4 ounces of powder,and a windage of ^ of the caliber, 7 of the charge is lost,or nearly a mean between and

And if the computation be made in like manner for theabove charges of 8 ounces of powder, it will be found thatthe part of the charge lost by the same windage, will be, inthe case of 8 ounces, p 7 of the whole; which is still morethan the \ part, though somewhat less than in the case of 4t ounces. The reason of which is, that the ball is sooner out