The whole construction seems strange and warrants further comment. The means of communicating fire to the outer barrels seems reasonably clear. The centre barrel connects with the percusion ignition and six holes in the hollow breech plug communicate with the touch holes in the outer barrels. Each of the outer barrels appears to have its own breech plug which can be removed with an internal squared key. This explains the strike marks on the face of the barrel group which indicate which plug belongs to which barrel and ensures they are correctly aligned.
What isn't clear is why the barrel group was designed to be removable as this doesn't contribute anything to its functionality. A strike mark on the breech shows how the barrel group is supposed to align but wear on the thread means the barrels no longer align correctly. This suggests to me that it was designed with spare interchangeable barrels mitigating the issue with multiple barrelled weapons which is the time taken to re load. If this was the case then it looks like a somewhat optimistic design maybe in anticipation of a lucrative naval contract.
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