PREFACE.' XXIX

the purpose of cavalry as a gun, whose rangewith certainty would not much exceed therange of a musquet, answer the purpose of ar-tillery. The reveries of speculatists, or thecrude, ill-digested productions of mere practi-tioners are equally to be rejected. The per-fection of artillery is to unite solidity withlightness, simplicity with strength, and to addlength of range to certainty of execution : who-ever does the most toward attaining these ob-jects, is best intitled to the gratitude of hiscountry.

There are a few terms used in the course ofthis translation that may require a short expla-nation. A syjiem of demolition implies a systemof fortification, where the works are connectedtogether by arches thrown over ditches, or in.any similar manner; and where the exteriorw’ork may be demolished or taken possession ofby the enemy, and the communication de-stroyed, without the interior work being in theleast degree exposed or weakened. In short,it is an improved mode of making intrench-ments in the bastion and ravelin and behind thecurtain: its invention is attributed to Busca ofMilan, who wrote in the beginning of the lastcentury.

In treating of mines, the word provisional has

been