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Caption: 9-inch Armstrong Rifled Muzzle-Loading gun on a traversing platform

This large cannon is in a coastal battery at York Redoubt National Historic Site near Halifax. This type of gun weights 12 tons (12.2 mt) and fires a projectile of 256 pounds (116 kg.) at an effective range of 2,000 yards (1829 m.). Great guns such as this one were installed in Canadian major forts from the 1860s. During the 1880s, the eight forts defending Halifax had thirty-eight 9-inch (22.8 cm.) guns as well as fifteen 10-inch (25.4 cm.), fifteen 7-inch (17.7 cm.) and nine 64-pounder (29 kg.) RML cannons ready to battle enemy warships. The mountings and the concrete ‘Moncrieff’ emplacement pit, named after its designer, were a refinement of the 1890s which allowed gunner to fire the gun over a high parapet while being well protected from enemy fire. (Parks Canada)