Show CANNONS OF STONE defence of clr torturer of malta cat oat of the rock the most wonderful cannons on record are those which are described by bardone Byr done whose travels in sicily and malta won well deserved renown toward the end of the last century facts and stories he recounts that seem strangely old world to us though the date is little more than one hundred years ago so grandly did the french revolution transform europe malta was full of wonders more or less droll while the knights held it but nothing equaled the stone guns everybody knows that the fortifications were cut out of solid rock but brydone was right in saying that a kind of ordnance used to defend them was unknown to all the world besides As we understand his description alie knights left a great block of stone where they out an embrasure in the cliff which afterward they shaped and bored in the form of a gigantic mortar these engines contained n whole barrel of gunpowder that shoveled in they plugged it with a great piece of wood fitted exactly to the bore as a wadding and loaded up with cannon balls shells and other deadly materials about fifty of remarkable guns commanded the spots which a hostile ship was most likely to approach the mouths of some are six feet wide and they are able to throw ten thousand pounds weight of balls or stones the range is not stated but alie falling projectiles covered an area of over three hundred square yards |