Santa Monica CA cannon...

[Victor3]

 I was just looking for another old pic and found these. This cannon was (maybe still is) located in Palisades park, just North of the Santa Monica pier. I took these pics in ~1980. It reads "July 4th, 1908" cast into the concrete base. That's all I can make out in the pic. It's rifled...

[cannonmn]

I'm sure I saw the same gun ca. 1980's.  The piece is interesting for a couple of reasons.  It appears to be mounted for display on an original Navy wrought-iron Marsilly carriage.  It is one of a pair in Sta Monica, 10 inch Rodmans sleeved to 8-inch via a tube inserted in the muzzle, the "3rd. series" of conversions. 

These are, per "The Big Guns" by Olmstead et al:

No. 47, insp RB, fdry no. 262 yr 1885, wt. 15980,   Seyfurt, McManus, Orig ID:  No. 102, MS, 1864 wt. 15176 l

No. 48, insp RB, fdry no. 263, yr 1886, wt. 16020, " " ", Orig ID:  No. 103, MS, 1864, 15176 lbs.

[dominick]

Does anyone have more info on the carriage?  It looks like a cut down two wheeled iron marsilly carriage.  Is it the top half of a barbette type carriage?  Dom

[intoodeep]

Here's a couple more photos.

[cannonmn]

It appears to be mounted for display on an original Navy wrought-iron Marsilly carriage.

[dominick]

Actually, what I was try to find was a photo of the complete carriage.  It appears to be the upper half of a casemate/barbette carriage.  All I could find are photos of the very angular straight-cut mounts as shown below.

[cannonmn]

I just the inspector's initials on the muzzle differ from those I copied out of "The Big Guns!"   I haven't found that many errors in the book, but this is one.  Another error I've found is that some drawings are duplicated but have different captions, so the intended drawing was omitted.  I'm sure that was a printer's error, the authors were pretty careful people.

I guess Dom thinks the carriage in Santa Monica is an Army carriage, and I think it is Navy, maybe some kind of postwar pivot carriage for an 11-inch Dahlgren?  The four lightening holes and the eyebolts on the rear of the sides seemed like Navy to me, but I don't have a drawing of that one I can find.  It looks like the small oval hole shown in the sideplate could be for a compressor handwheel, so it may indeed be the top part of a carriage.  It is definitely different from the Marsilly carriages that have two wheels in front.