ABSTRACT
Statisticians inform us that the entire loss of life in wars between so-called civilised countries from the year 1793 down to 1877 has reached the enormous amount of four million four hundred and seventy thousand. To start firing, one end of belt is inserted in the gun, the trigger is pulled by the hand once, after which the movement becomes continuous and automatic as long as supply of cartridges lasts. Should a faulty or an empty cartridge find its way in, and the gun does not go off in consequence, there is of course no recoil to keep up the repeating action, and the mechanism ceases to work until the obstruction is removed. To devise and adjust the necessary parts of the machine with such precision that each part performs its proper function at the exact moment pre-arranged for it – to do all this while the gun fires at the enormous rate of six hundred rounds a minute.
