The public are indebted to Mr. Jones for the ingenious mechanism by which continuous pressure on the trigger causes both the revolution of the barrels and the discharge of the piece; this patent goes back to 1829-1830.  Colonel Colt first endeavoured to make a number of barrels revolve by raising the hammer, but the weight of the barrels suggested a return to the old rotatory cylinder, for which he took out a patent in 1835; and in 1836 he took out another patent for obtaining the rotatory motion by drawing back the trigger, and he subsequently introduced the addition of a lever ramrod fixed on to the barrel.  Col.  Colt came to the conclusion that the hammer-revolving cylinder was the more useful article, inasmuch as it enabled the person using it to take a more steady aim than with the other, which, revolving and firing by the action of the trigger, the moment of explosion could not be depended upon.  To Col.  Colt belongs the honour of so combining obsolete and modern inventions, and superadding such improvements of his own, as to produce the first practical and really serviceable weapon.

Since then Messrs. Dean and Adams, in 1852, revived the old invention of the trigger-revolving cylinder, which has the advantage of only requiring one hand to fire, but which is immeasurably inferior where accuracy of aim is wanted.  Mr. Tranter, in 1853, patented a new invention, which, by employing a double trigger, combines the advantages of Colt and avoids the drawbacks of Dean and Adams.  By a side-wind he has also adapted that invaluable application of Colt’s—­a fixed lever ramrod.  Many other patents are springing up daily, too numerous to mention, and too similar to admit of easy definition.

To return to rifles.—­It is well known that the ordinary rifle in use until late years was the seven-grooved, with a spherical ball, and the two-grooved, with a zone bullet; the latter an invention known as the Brunswick rifle; and imported from Berlin about 1836.  It was upon this weapon Mr. Lancaster proceeded to make some very ingenious experiments, widening the grooves gradually until at last they met, and an elliptic bore rifle was produced, for which he obtained a patent in July, 1850; but upon investigation it would be proved that Mr. Lancaster’s patent was invalid, inasmuch as the elliptical bore rifle is of so ancient a date that it is mentioned in Scloppetaria—­a work printed in 1808—­as even then obsolete; the details, methods, and instruments for their fabrication are fully described therein; and I have seen a rifle of this kind, made by “Dumazin, a Paris,” which is at least a century old; it is now in the possession of the Duke of Athole.  Mr. Lancaster is entitled to the credit of bringing into practical use what others had thrown on one side as valueless.