This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 Excerpt: ...that mathematics, while a good servant, might be a very bad master. All the formulae to which reference had been made were very well, if the values of the different letters could be obtained; bnt if those values were not ascertained by experimental data, the formulae were simply so much juggling with letters of the alphabet. Of course the Woolwich system was theoretically wrong, and no one knew that better than the constructors of the guns. But they were perhaps practically the best available in the present state of metallurgical knowledge. A hard steel tube was put inside, and.soft metal outside. What could be worso than that? Of course the soft metal outside expanded much more than the tough steel inside, and if it was overstrained it would get the "set" first. It was, however,...