Ordination

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the act of conferring the sacrament of order in the Roman Catholic Church. Women are incapable of being validly ordained (I Cor. xiv: 34; I Tim. ii: 11, 12). Ordination is, in the normal course of things, conferred by bishops, but abbots may confer minor orders on their subjects. Dismissory letters are necessary if a man is to be ordained for a diocese other than that in which he was born, and he must have legitimate and sufficient title. Ordina- St. tion to sacred orders, according to the general law of the Church, can only take Ob- place on the Saturdays in the four Ember weeks, on the fifth Saturday in Lent, life or on Holy Saturday, and always during of mass. Minor orders can be conferred at as- general ordinations, and also on any com- Sunday or holiday, not necessarily dur- In the United States Protestant Thus churches have each their own method of , ordination, which is rather a service of Præ- consecration than a sacrament impart- , ing special power. The ordination in the Episcopal Church is patterned largely . after that of the English Episcopal ORDNANCE. Although artillery weapons, equipment, such as wagons, caissons, and limbers, machine guns, rifles, small arms, hand grenades, harness and ammunition of all kinds are included in the general class of military supplies known as ordnance, this article will consider only the features of construction of the artillery weapon and its mount. Artillery weapons are of three types, guns, mortars and howitzers. Of each type there are various models, the , style, size and power of which are determined by the use for which the weapon is intended. Guns are of three main classes, field, siege and coast defense weapons. In the United States Army field guns are again classified. Those under six inches in diameter are known as light artillery and are operated by the field artillery, while every gun of more than six inches is classed as heavy artillery, and is operated by the coast artillery corps. A gun is fired from a low angular muzzle compared to that of a mortar, the elevation frequently being as low as 15°, and seldom exceeding 40°, while a mortar is designed to fire with a muzzle elevation of 65° to 70°. The barrel of a gun is usually longer than that of a mortar of the same caliber, and because of that fact, the expanding gases from the explosion have a longer time to act and a higher muzzle velocity results from a charge of power of the same power. A siege weapon is either a large gun or mortar placed on some sort of a mobile mount such as a caterpillar platform or a special railway mount. A howitzer is a short weapon usually of comparatively light weight, and so designed that its projectile will have an abrupt fall. It is a long step from the catapult of ancient days to the gun with which the Germans bombarded Paris from a distance of over seventy miles, but as a matter of fact real progress in ordnance has been comparatively modern. In spite of the fact that gunpowder was known to China and the far east for years before it was known in Europe, rst credit should go to the West for the first use of guns as they are now understood. Little attention was paid to the design of the gun or to the strength of the charge in early days, and the first models were frequently more dangerous to their crews than to the targets. Early guns were made of wrought or cast iron or bronze, and gradually increased in size and weight in order to secure greater strength. They were of course loaded at the muzzle and fired by AMERICAN 4.7 HOWITZER a fuse. The modern gun is made of City in 1860. Graduated from Brown steel, and only selected parts of special University in 1880 and took a post-gradingots are used. The ingot is cast in the rough form of the gun, bored on a special lathe, then heated and forged on a mandrel, then annealed, then turned and bored to size, tempered and again commissions, including one appointed by annealed. The inside of the gun or tube is bored and reamed by a special machine which assures straightness. The outer part or jacket is heated and consequently expanded and dropped over the tube, where it cools and shrinks to position. The several parts of the gun are assembled in this fashion. The assembled gun is then rifled, turned to final size on the outside, the powder chamber and breech rest are finished, and the gun fitted with a breech lock of either a sliding or interrupted screw type. The function of a gun carriage is to support the gun as it is fired, and in the case of mobile guns to furnish a means for transportation. A means for compensating the enormous force of recoil has been the subject of much study on the part of designers of ordnance, and many devices using springs, air or water have been introduced and many perfected. In the French 75 millimeter gun, acknowledged the most successful field piece of the World War, its outstanding superior superior feature was its hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism.