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Otago Daily Times, Issue 848, 9 September 1864, Page 6

August 27th, 1864. The Motion of Bombshells.—At night we can see the path of a shell through all its journey, lighted as it is by the burning fuse. V\ tien the range is two miles, the track of a shell from a mortar deccribes very near half the arc of a circle. On leaving the mortar it gracefully moves ou, climbing up and up into the heavens till it is nearly or quite a mile aoove the earth, and then it glides alongl for a moment, apparently in a horizontal line; but quickly, you see that the little firey orb is describing the o'her segment of the circle. A shell from a Parrott rifled gnn, in sgoing two and a half miies, deviates from a straight line not quite as much as a shell from a mortar. But in passing over this space considerable time is required. The report travels much faster than the shot. A shell from a caortar will make a distance of two miles in about thirty seconds, and from a Parrott gun about half that time. The flash of a gun at night, and the white smoke by day. indicate the moment of the discharge, and fifteen or twenty seconds give an abundance of time to find a cover in a splinter proof, behind a trench, or something else.— merican Paper