2-913-980 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cannon Revolver, exhibited in the Marine Museum, at Paris, 1854. '...an instrument invented some time ago. M. Frugier Coigny claims to have invented it, in 1828...It is easy to see at once the numberless inconveniences of the revolving barrel...In the first place, the weapon becomes foul more quickly; and this defect, after a certain number of discharges, clogs and arrests all the movements of the machinery...there is the risk of explosion from several chambers going off together. These inconveniences are not removable by any improvement of the mechanical or instrumental details, but belong to the revolver-principle itself...the French Government has consigned it to the naval museum, among bygone objects of curiosity, the relics of infructuous invention...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.