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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jagfan who wrote (32929)	1/17/2005 3:18:34 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 62569

Not a laughing matter-- A lot of net sites say the brass monkey as a shot holder was apocryphal. Most fort cannon did use triangles of wood or square frames for what is called ready-shot. You had to be ready to defend. On 18th century ships that remain today, one can see gunwale-rail bronze holders that retained ready-shot. (HMS Bounty) Why bronze? To resist salt spray and not corrode the iron. 9 round shot could weigh in at 250 lbs or more, and strength was needed for an elevated shot holder. You would not want it breaking and shot rolling about on deck. One other possibility however is that since the term monkey did name a sort of cannon of a period when brass was oft used for field pieces, as it was up to the civil war. How one froze the balls off cannon is a mystery. Perhaps the iron shot would not fit the bronze barrel after the temperature had fallen too far, but as I recall, bronze is very close in co-efficient of thermal expansion to iron. Another thing to realize is that a brass band is light to carry, strong, and will not corrode easily as iron does, nor can iron or wood be made as light. It's usefullness as a ready-shot holder would be apparent, although except for the deck gunwale varieties I have not seen an instance of one. EC<:-}