Our readers may have seen or heard the statement that it takes a soldier's weight of lead to kill him in battle, and they may have considered it to be merely a rhetorical hyperbole, suggested by the obvious fact that comparatively few out of the while number of shots in war take effect. It seems, however that the assertion, which originated with the famous Marshal Saxe, was proved by Cassendi, after careful mathematical calculation, to be no exaggeration, and with all the improvements that have been made in muskets and in the art of using them effectively, it is still not far from the truth. At the battle of Solferino a comparison of the number of shots fired on the Austrian side with the number killed and wounded on the part of the enemy, shows that seven hundred bullets were expended for each man wounded, and 4,200 for each one killed. Now, as the average weight of the ball used was thirty grams, it must have required at least 126 kilograms, or about 277 pounds of lead, to kill a man. In the Franco-Prussian war the slaughter caused by the needle-gun among the French shows how much superior that firearm was to the Austrian carbine; but about 1,300 shots were required then to accomplish the destruction of a single soldier. It is found in practice that a great majority of the wasted bullets go over the heads of the enemy; hence resort is sometimes had to be expedient of pressing down, by means of a staff, the muskets of platoon of men about to fire, a sergeant being detailed for the service. When the shots are aimed at an isolated solider, the chances against him are, of course, grater; but even then the waste of lead is something enormous. In the Franco-Prussian war, according to an officer who witnessed the performance, a French company of chasseurs fired for a quarter of an hour at a German mounted sentry posted on hillock about here hundred yards off. Full four hundred shots were fired before either man or horse was hit. A really expert marksman would probably have picked off the man at the very first attempt, or certainly at the second. Popular Science News
