645 CARTWRIGHT, EDMUND.
Around this as a base the paper cylinder or case is formed and filled up with the proper charge of gunpowder, and shots or a ball as the case may be. This invention is intended to be used in conjunction with a peculiar mode of constructing muskets so as to be loaded at the breech.
Dr. Jager invented a new kind of cartridge in 1847, intended to be used with a new kind of musket also invented by him. There is neither priming nor percussion cap needed in the firing ; but a kind of percussion cap, or nip ple filled with fulminating powder, is formed in the cartridge itself ; and the gun is so formed, that a small hammer, moved by the trigger, strikes on the nipple, which projects a little way into an aperture in the side of the gun.
From a return presented to the Committee of the House of Commons on the Ordnance Estimates, in 1849, it appears that the store of cartridges kept on hand by the Ordnance is immense. On the 1st January, 1849, the
store in the United Kingdom and the colonies was as follows :— Musket Ball Cartridges . . 48,727,366 „ Blank „ . . . 8,527,159 Carbine Ball „ . . . 8,188,288 „ Blank „ . . . 4,335,087 Pistol Ball „ . . . 4,077,722 „ Blank „ . . . 046,023 Rifle Ball . . . 3,802,584 Musketoon Ball „ . . . 58,326 78,662,555 When percussion muskets were introduced into the army, the old cartridges became use less. Most of the cartridges are made up by boys, in the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich ; there are about 180 boys so employed, each of whom can make 600 ball cartridges or 900 blank cartridges in a day; but sometimes ar tillery men make them up in the colonies from powder sent from England in barrels.