The “Monster Gun” — Tanjore, Tamilnadu, 1858, photo by Linnaeus Tripe. About the cannon (24 feet 5 inches), the photographer writes: “It has received the name of Rajah Gopala, and as this is a name of Vishnu it may be inferred that it was made by one of the Vaishnava Nayakar kings. It certainly belongs to that period. It is said to have been once fired, on which occasion the inhabitants of the Fort were warned by beat of drum to leave their houses. A trail of powder was laid for two miles and 40 minutes elapsed before the fire reached the gun. The sound, it seems, was as if Mount Meru had exploded…” (British Library)
Possibly the same gun?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/jagadamba-bhavani-the-deadliest-cannon/article4483268.ece
Possibly not.
ReplyDeleteThere is a later reference to it here, but the site comes up as untrustworthy - https://www.trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/38418551
A two mile powder trail? That is some serious safety precautions in testing.
ReplyDelete--Hale
That tells you how much confidence they had in their guesstimate of the proper powder charge.
DeleteI think that I'd want to be at least 2 miles away.
ReplyDelete