017v - - - - - [continued]
The large canon is for great batteries and usually weighs fifty five or 60 quintals. The breech is two cannonball and three quarters each. The mouth is one cannonball and three quarters each. It is thirteen or fourteen pans in length. But they are very uneasy to drive. The proper battery, to be used rapidly and to have great impact, is a hundred fifty to two hundred paces. It is true that a fair impact can be had from three or four hundred paces, but more powder is needed. Its usual load is 20 pounds of powder; its cannonball weighs 40 pounds, and 25 horses are required to carry it. When one needs a longer range than the usual one, half a linstock of canon powder is added. 80 or a hundred shots can be made with this canon per day, but it needs to be cooled down after each nine or ten shots if the battery is continuously used; if there are some breaks, it is not necessary to refresh it as often. For each quintal of copper — or one quintal and a half for big cannons — a quintal of metal is added. The metal is composed of eight pounds of tin for each quintal of rosette and even less for big bells for which we use only six pounds of fine tin for a quintal of rosette, to give it a louder voice. Because the more tin there is, the clearer the sound is. For canon founding, if the material and charcoal is provided as it is usually done because masters cannot afford it, it costs 10 to 12 pounds per quintal. And when the master provides everything, you give him 40 pounds per quintal for big pieces such as cannons, according to the King’s ordinance. And 50 pounds for smaller pieces. For the more matter there is, the more the master makes profit. Another kind of 30 quintal’s fowler is founded which is longer than the others, and usually 8 pans long, which is used to attack fortifications and cassemattes by displaying them, at night, in groups on the moat’s edge. ◯
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Each side of the breech’s opening is half a cannonball thick, plus a third of a cannonball.
We give it two linstock of cannon powder for its load, and half a linstock of arquebus powder and the same for the others.
at left middle margin
# The alloy of cannons from France is made of one quintal of metal for two of rosette. But those of Toulouse and Poncet put 3 quintals of rosette for one of metal.
The rosette used to remelt is better than rosette for cauldrons, for the latter get all dirty.
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The older pieces are composed of almost as much of each, that is to say a part of rosette and one of metal. This alloy can be recognized with a burin because the matter is acid and the part scraped off with the burin is yellow and white.
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