Forensic Ballistics are two rather high-sounding words, but the use of them is required to convey briefly the information intended. The word "forensic" pertains to courts of justice; "ballistics" defines the science of projectiles. Consequently, Forensic Ballistics is the application of the knowledge of firearms, powders, and bullets to judicial problems. This paragraph may be considered academic to the knowing, but it is essential to those to whom the subject is new. It is felt that the possibilities of this form of evidence are not known to any great extent and therefore cannot be properly appreciated. The few instances that follow, showing how ballistic data have been of some service to our judiciary, may give some idea as to what can be expected from a scientific examination of the firearm exhibits which are so often introduced in our courts. 1. An Automatic Case. The attorney for the accused had been assured by his client that his wife had shot herself with an automatic pistol. There were not any powder nor discharge marks on the face of the deceased where the fatal bullet entered. This fact did not discourage the counselor. The attorney knew something of firearms, and of the distances the powder contained in automatic pistol ammunition could be expected to disfigure flesh. He had had considerable experience. Precedents where he practiced had demonstrated that one can easily hold an automatic pistol far enough away from head or body to keep it from recording either powder or discharge marks. The weapon used had never been located. His client had fled with the pistol from the scene of the alleged suicide, and before he was apprehended, which was some weeks later, the firearm was claimed to have been lost. No one except his client and the deceased wife were present at the occurrence. The accused offered a reasonable explanation of the suicide, and accompanied it with plausible data connected with apparent conditions which one would reasonably expect could not be successfully contradicted. Little headway was made by the Commonwealth at the trial of the accused until a student of ballistics identified the fatal bullet as one adapted to revolvers and rifles instead of automatic pistols. He testified that the copper-jacketed bullet was a 32 Winchester, com-