FOOTNOTES:
[1] Escorial MS., No. 1249, given in Casiri’s Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escur., ii. 7.
[2] Hist. du Roy Saint Loys, Paris, 1668, p. 39. He calls the projectile “ung tonneau,” which it probably was. See the section on “Incendiary Fireballs.”
[3] Estimated for gunpowder at 3373° C.
“... to be the mark
Of smoky muskets.”
—All’s Well that Ends Well, iii. 2.
[5] Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women,” 637. Professor Skeat points out that the word “gonne” applies to the projectile in this line.
[6] Only the whirring of the shot.
[7] Only the faint light of the time fuze.
[8] Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe, Paris, 1827, iii. 68.
[9] Cod. MS. phil. 63, in the library of the University of Göttingen, quoted by Romocki, i. 134.
[10] Froissart’s original account of the battle of Cressy in the Amiens MS. will be found in Kervyn de Lettenhove’s ed. of the “Chronicles,” Brussels, 1870, and in the Appendix to Polain’s ed. of the Vrayes Chroniques de Messire Jehan le Bel, Brussels, 1863. See also “Cannon at Cressy,” by the present writer, in Proc. R. A. Inst., vol. xxvi.
[11] “Toxophilus,” p. 67.
[12] “Sometimes we put a new signification to an old word, as when we call a Piece a Gun. The word Gun was in use in England for an Engine to cast a thing from a Man, long before there was any Gunpowder found out.”—“Table Talk,” p. 107.
[13] “Language and the Study of Language,” 1867, p. 126.
[14] Cordite, for instance, is frequently miscalled “smokeless powder.”
[15] As Artillery for ages represented both bows and cannon.
“Si forte necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis
Continget, dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter.”—A. P. 48.
[17] e.g., whether Artillery means bows and arrows or cannon in 1 Sam. xx. 40; but this is an exceedingly simple case.
[18] Except one disputed Sanskrit text which will be found in Rāy’s “Hindu Chemistry,” pp. 97-8.
[19] “Les terres d’où l’on tire le kien, ou la couperose de Chine, fermentent comme celles du salpêtre; on y est souvent trompé, ce n’est qu’au goût qu’on peut distinguer les unes des autres.”—Père Incarville, a Chinese missionary, in Reinaud and Favé, p. 251.
[20] Supposed to be of Greek origin.
[21] Journal Asiatique, Oct. 1849, p. 283.
[22] Reinaud and Favé, p. 142. On the next page, 143, sarcosti is spelled (by the same writer) salcosti.
[23] “Tunc aquam illam (salt water) coque in vase vitreo.”—Albert Groot in Zetzner’s Theatrum Chemicum, 1613, ii. 433.
[24] The Greeks had a corresponding distinction between natural and artificial salt. Herodotus calls the salt crystallised by the sun at the mouth of the Borysthenes ἅλες αὐτόματοι, automatic, or spontaneous salt, as distinguished from ἅλς ὀρυκτός, dug-out, or rock salt; iv. 53 and 185.
[25] Berthelot, iii. 153.
[26] Ib., i. 239. The forgeries in question may have been the work of several writers, but this does not affect the date given above.
[27] The Arabic works of the real Jabir are given by Berthelot in iii. 126 ff.; the Latin works of the false Jabir (or Geber) in i. 336 ff.
[28] Ib., i. 199, recipe 60.
[29] Ib., i. 308.
[30] Owing to the great number of Arabic words borrowed by the Persians it is extremely difficult to judge from a translation whether a lost original was Arabic or Persian, the more so as the Arabs borrowed largely from the Persian. Far more honour for scientific work has been paid to the Arabs, far less to the Persians, Syrians, and Hindus, than was their proper due. Renan says that Al-Kindi was the only Moslem philosopher of pure Arab blood.—Discours et Conférences, p. 391.
[31] Udoy Chand Dutt, “Materia Medica of the Hindus,” pp. 89-90. I presume that sora (being of foreign origin) was a corruption of the Persian شوره (shora) = saltpetre.
[32] “Hindu Chemistry,” by Praphulla Chandra Rāy, Professor of Chemistry, Presidency College, Calcutta, 1902, pp. 99-100.
[33] Yavakshara was apparently the “barley” used in a saltpetre mixture of the Arabic treatise (in Syriac characters) given by Berthelot, ii. 198.
[34] Romocki, i. 51.
[35] هو زهر حجر اسيوس ... هو ثلج الصين عند القدماء من اطباء مصر ويعرفونه عامة المغرب والطباوها بالبارود Reinaud and Favé, p. 14. The phrase, “flower of the stone of Assos,” was a thousand years old when Abd Allah used it, for we find it in Lucian’s Tragodopodagra (ἄνθος Ἀσίου λίθου, l. 162), a work written A.D. 180-200. But, like so many other words, it completely changed its meaning in the lapse of years. Abd Allah used it to designate saltpetre: Pliny the elder (“Nat. Hist.,” xxxvi. 17) tells us it had the property of utterly consuming dead bodies, except the teeth, in forty days—a property saltpetre does not possess.
[36] Majus Opus, London, 1733, p. 474.
[37] See chapter iv.
[38] This process was carried out in the East, or wherever the natural saltpetre was collected; not at Waltham Abbey. The facts are taken from the “Handbook of the Manufacture of Gunpowder,” by Capt. F. M. Smith, R.A., London, 1871.
[39] F´, &c., means a repetition of F, &c.
[40] See chapter iv., recipe 14.
[41] Taken from Reinaud and Favé, p. 237.
[42] i.e. the lapis assius = saltpetre.
[43] The way in which this process has been obtained will be explained in chapter viii. The phrases within brackets there are simply written consecutively here, word for word, except a few conjunctions rendered unnecessary by the punctuation.
[44] Thucydides, vii. 43.
[45] Diodorus Siculus, xx. 88.
[46] Vergil, Æn., ix. 705; Lucan, Phars., vi. 199.
[47] Tacitus, Hist., iv. 23.
[48] De Re Militari, chap. viii. See Table II.
[49] xxiii. 4.
[50] Thucydides, ii. 77.
“E lor porge di zolfo e di bitumi
Due palle, e’n cavo rame ascosi lumi.”
—Tasso, Ger. Lib., xii. 42.
[51] Ib., iv. 100.
[52] Ib., vii. 53.
[53] In Bibliotheca Script. Græc. et Rom. Teubneriana. Leipsig, 1874. Chap. xxxv. p. 79. See Table II.
[54] Poliorketikon, xxxv. 79.
[55] De Re Militari, iv. 8.
[56] Recipe 26 (see Chap. iv.).
[57] “Bellifortis,” in Romocki, i. 154.
[58] Whitehorne, Chap. xxix. fol. 40.
[59] Official “Treatise on Ammunition.”
[60] i.e. Pine-wood charcoal.
[61] A gum.
[62] Salt recovered from salt-water by natural or artificial heat.
[63] Cream of tartar = bitartrate of potash.
[64] Kallinikos was probably a Syrian-Greek; Hertzberg, Gesch. der Byzantiner, &c., p. 58.
[65] Τότε Καλλίνικος ἀρχιτέκτων ἀπὸ Ἡλιουπόλεως Συρίας, προσφυγὼν τοῖς Ῥωμαίοις, πῦρ θαλάσσιον κατασκευάσας, τὰ τῶν Ἀράβων σκάφη ἐνέπρησεν καὶ σύμψυχα κατέκαυσεν. Καὶ οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι μετὰ νίκης ὑπέστρεψαν καὶ τὸ θαλάσσιον πῦρ εὗρον. Corp. Script. Hist. Byzant., ed. Niebuhr: “Theophanes,” A.M. 6165, A.C. 665; i. 542.
[66] Ἰστέον ὅτι ἐπὶ Κωνσταντίνου Πωγωνάτου ... Καλλίνικός τις ἀπὸ Ἡλιουπόλεως, Ῥωμαίοις προσφυγὼν, τὸ διὰ τῶν σιφώνων ἐκφερόμενον πῦρ ὑγρὸν κατεσκεύασε, δι’ οὗ καὶ τὸν τῶν Σαρακηνῶν στόλον ἐν Κυζίκῳ Ῥωμαῖοι καταφλέξαντες τὴν νίκην ἤραντο.
[67] K. K. Müller, in his Eine griechische Schrift über Seekrieg, 1882, p. 44, pertinently remarks that Jähns, who accepts this early date, can give no example of the use of sea-fire before the seventh century.
[68] “Traitors are often to be suspected even about your person” (ὑποπτεύονταί τινες προδόται καὶ παρά σοι πολλάκις ὄντες). Leo’s “Tactics,” xxi. 35.
[69] Revue des Deux Mondes, 15th Aug. 1891, p. 805.
[70] Μετὰ βροντῆς καὶ καπνοῦ “Tactics,” xix. 51.
[71] By Friar Bacon. See Chapter viii.
“... nec fulmine tanti
Dissultant crepitus ...”—Æn., xii. 922.
[73] Siphons, of whatever kind, were known before sea-fire. On hearing of the Moslem preparations to attack him in 671, Constantine Pogonatus ordered the siphon-bearing warships (δρόμωνας σιφωνοφόρους) to be put in commission.—Theophanes’ “Chronography,” i. 542.
[74] “Alexander,” c. 35; tr. by Stewart and Long.
[75] “Natural History,” xxxvi. 53.
[76] See Boivin’s notes on the “Kestoi” in Vet. Mathematicorum ... Op., ed. Thévenot, 1693, p. 357; and Gelzer’s S. J. Africanus, 1880, i. 13.
[77] In the Deipnosophists of Athenæus a juggler is represented as producing automatic fire, c. 16, e.
[78] Πίσσα καὶ δᾷδες καὶ ἄσβεστος Corp. Script. Hist. Byzant., Pt. xxii. p. 537.
[79] Χύτρας τε ἀλλ’ οὗς ἀσβέστου πλήρης κ.τ.λ. “Tactics,” xix., § 54, in Meursii Op., vi.
[80] Recipe 24 (see Chapter iv.).
[81] Nürnberg MS., in Romocki, i. 125, recipe, “ignis qui in pluvia.”
[82] Generally ascribed to Albert Groot, but much more probably by one of his pupils. Berthelot, i. 91.
[83] Romocki, i. 154.
[84] Ib., 130.
[85] Cedrenus seems to convey that the manufacture of incendiaries was the privilege of the Lampros family, but it was presumably carried on in some Government establishment (ἐκ τούτου κατάγεται ἡ γενεὰ τοῦ Λαμπροῦ, τοῦ νυνὶ τὸ πῦρ ἐντέχνως κατασκευάζοντος); ed. Bekker, Bonn, 1838, i. 765.
[86] Herr von Romocki was, I believe, the first to offer this explanation.
[87] See p. 13, and Table II., col. Liber Ignium.
[88] Dr. Bury in Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” &c., vii. 540.
[89] Πῦρ τε διὰ τῶν σιφώνων τῷ ἀέρι φυσήσαντες, p. 536.
[90] Ἐμφυσᾶται ... λάβρῳ καὶ συνεχεῖ πνεύματι κἆθ’ οὕτως ὁμιλεῖ τῷ πρὸς ἄκραν πυρί. “Alex.,” xiii. 3.
[91] “From the fir and such like evergreen trees may be prepared a fiercely-burning mixture” (ἀπὸ τῆς πεύκης καὶ ἄλλων τινῶν τοιούτων δένδρων ἀειθαλῶν συνάγεται δάκρυον εὔκαυστον). Ib. See Æneas’ mixture in Table II. Anna’s recipe is intentionally incomplete.
[92] Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐθάδες ἦσαν τοιούτων σκευῶν ἢ πυρὸς, ἄνω μὲν φύσει τὴν φορὰν ἔχοντος, πεμπομένου δ’ ἐφ’ ἃ βούλεται ὁ πέμπων κατά τε τὸ πρανὲς πολλάκις καὶ ἐφ’ ἑκάτερα. “Alex.,” l. xi., c. 10.
[93] The earliest notice of steam, as a motive power, is found in the Pneumatica of Heron of Alexandria, cir. 130 B.C. No further progress seems to have been made until the publication of the Pneumatica of Giambattista della Porta in 1601. Perkins’ steam-gun was exhibited in 1824.
[94] Ἐχέτω δὲ πάντως τὸν σίφωνα κατὰ τὴν πρώραν ἔμπροσθεν χαλκῷ ἠμφιεσμένον. “Tactics,” xix. § 6. There is no ambiguity about the word ἠμφιεσμένον, which is commonly applied to clothing, e.g. ἄνθρωπον ἐν μαλακοῖς ἱματίοις ἠμφιεσμένον = “a man clothed in soft raiment,” Luke vii. 25. I mention this because it has been stated and restated that the siphons were made of bronze, instead of being “clothed” or “cased” with bronze.
[95] Ἐσκευασμένον πῦρ ... διὰ τῶν σιφώνων πεμπόμενον. Ib., § 51.
[96] See p. 34 n.
[97] Ὁι δὲ σίφωνες οἷς χρῶνται εἰς τοῖς εμπρησμοῖς κατασκευάζονται οὕτως. “Spiritalia,” in Vet. Mathemat. Op., ed. Thévenot, p. 180.
[98] “Nullus usquam in publico sipho, nulla hama, nullum denique instrumentum ad incendia;” l. x., c. 48, ed. Titze, p. 252.
[99] Ὄργανον ἐις πρόεσιν ὑδάτων ἐν τοῖς ἐμπρησμοῖς.
[100] Πρὸς δὲ τοὺς προσφερομένους πύργους εἰς τὸ τεῖχος, ἵνα ὦσι στρεπτὰ μετὰ λαμπροῦ καὶ συφώνια καὶ χειροσύφωνα καὶ μαγγανικά. In Meursii, Op. VI., 1349. In his “Lex. of Byzantine Greek” Sophocles gives λαμπρόν = φῶς, πῦρ.
[101] Ἡ δὲ τζάγγρα τόξον μέν ἐστι βαρβαρικὸν καὶ Ἕλλησι παντελῶς ἀγνοούμενον. “Alex.,” ii. c. 8.
[102] Ἐν ἑκάστῃ πρώρᾳ τῶν πλοίων διὰ χαλκῶν καὶ σιδήρων λεόντων καὶ αλλοίων χερσαίων ζῴων κεφαλὰς, μετὰ στομάτων ἀνεῳγμένων, κατασκευάσας, χρυσῷ τε περιστείλας αὐτά, ὡς ἐκ μόνης θέας φοβερὸν φαίνεσθαι, τὸ διὰ τῶν στρεπτῶν κατὰ τῶν πολεμίων μέλλον ἀφίεσθαι πῦρ, διὰ τῶν στομάτων αὐτῶν παρεσκεύασε διιέναι. “Alex.,” xi. 10. The obscurity in style of both the Royal writers was no doubt intentional.
[103] Berthelot, Revue des Deux Mondes, Aug. 15, 1891, p. 800.
[104] American official “Hist. of the War of Rebellion,” ser. 1, vol. xxviii. pt. 1, p. 33.
[105] “Greek Fire,” in “Ency. Brit.,” ninth ed.
[106] Revue des Deux Mondes, Aug. 15, 1891, p. 792.
[107] Webber’s “Metrical Romances.”
[108] Liber Gardrobæ of Ed. I., in Tytler’s “Hist. of Scotland,” i. 181.
[109] Barbour’s “The Bruce,” bk. xvii., quoted by General R. Maclagan in Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, xlv. 30 ff.
[110] Froissart, vol. i. pt. 2, c. 21, p. 332; c. 26, p. 337.
[111] Diedo, “Hist. of the Republic of Venise,” ii. 228 ff.; Paruta, Storia della Guerra di Cipro, 88 ff.
[112] In Coleridge’s “Dict. of the Oldest Words in the English Language.”
[113] State Papers, Dom. Series, iii. 353.
[114] See Table II.
[115] E. Pears, “Fall of Constantinople,” 1885, p. 211.
[116] “Hist of Greece,” iii. 492.
[117] “Voyages,” &c. Trans. par Baratier, 1734, c. 6, p. 50.
[118] “Struphnos ... turned into money not only the bolts and anchors of the ships but their sails and rigging, and left the navy without a single large ship” (ὁ Στρυφνός ... δεινότατος ὢν μὴ μόνον γόμφους καὶ ἀγκύραις χρυσίου ἀλλάξασθαι ἀλλὰ καὶ λαίφεσιν ἐπιθέσθαι καὶ ἐξαργυρίσαι πρότονα, ἀπαξάπαντος πλοίου μικροῦ τὰ νεώρια Ῥωμαίων ἐκένωσε). Nicetæ Hist., “De Alex. Isaac. Ang. Fr.,” l. iii. p. 716. Sea-fire is not actually mentioned, but the man who made away with the fittings of the ships was not likely to spare the ammunition, if saleable.
[119] Ville-Hardouin, La Conquête de Constantinople, ed. Bouchon, 1891, p. 111.
[120] See p. 14.
[121] Οἴονται δέ τινες καὶ τηλεβόλους καὶ τηλεβολίσκους ὑπὸ Γερμανῶν ἀρχὴν αποδεδειγμένους κ.τ.λ. Chalcocondyles, Corp. Script. Hist. Byzant., ed. Niehbuhr, Bonn, 1843, l. ii. p. 72.
The tradition was widespread. Ariosto (1474-1533) says:—
“La macchina infernal ...
Prima portata fu tra gli Alamanni.”
—Orlando Furioso, xi. 23.
[122] Δεινὸν γάρ τοι ὁ τηλεβολίσκος καὶ οὐδὲν τῶν ὅπλων ἀντέχει ὥστε μὴ διαχωρεῖν διὰ πάντων καθικνούμενος. Ib., l. vii. p. 346.
[123] Herodotus, viii. 52, in his description of the taking of Athens during the invasion of Xerxes, 480 B.C.
[124] Μετὰ βροντῆς καὶ καπνοῦ. Leo’s “Tactics,” xix. 51. See p. 38, and Jähns, 515.
[125] “Dans notre opinion, les diverses compositions incendiares employées par les Arabes et par les Grecs, antérieurement à l’année 1225, ne contiennent pas de salpêtre.”—Reinaud and Favé, Journal Asiatique, Oct. 1849, p. 282.
[126] Paris MSS. 7156 and 7158, which may be dated 1300.
[127] These lines are attached by Berthelot to No. 6.
[128] I have inserted these two words from the Nürnberg MS. (Romocki, i. 124), instead of the unmeaning “horatactinæ.”
[129] Berthelot reads “primo.”
[130] “Take” is here “accipe” instead of the “recipe” used in the nine preceding recipes.
[131] Berthelot reads, “lauri.”
[132] Better, “in scrophulis contra lapides,” Berthelot’s reading.
[133] This is the reading of the Paris MS. 7156. Ptolemy is here spelt as Chaucer spells it, Tholome; “Boece,” ii. 7.
[134] Probably a scribe’s blunder for cynoglossi.
[135] There seems to have been some lacuna in a previous recipe.
[136] There is no Index to the original. The above has been made for the convenience of the reader.
[137] i. c. 4. There is a marked similarity between certain numerals to be found in Kyeser’s “Bellifortis,” 1405, and those used in the Nürnberg MS. Romocki, i. 124, 150.
[138] See p. 16. He was born near Malaga.
[139] Berthelot, iii. 2.
[140] “Golden Prairies,” Paris ed., viii. 177.
[141] i. 128-132.
[142] Not a genuine Greek word, although used by Herodotus.
[143] Gibbon, vi. 103, Bury’s ed.
[144] Romocki, i. 7 n.
[145] Reinaud and Favé, p. 49.
[146] Jähns, 512 n.
[147] “Hist. Hierosol.,” l. vii. c. 33.
[148] Hist. Rerum Anglicarum, l. iv. c. 19. A work carried up to the year 1198.
[149] In his summary of Masudi’s “Book of Indication and Admonition,” appended to the “Golden Prairies,” Paris ed., ix. 311.
[150] Ib., i 198.
[151] “Tale of the Tailor,” i. 280, 285, Burton’s ed., 1894.
[152] “Archæologia,” xxxiv. 261.
[153] “Assyrian Discoveries,” p. 407.
[154] R. Grant, “Hist. of Physical Astronomy,” p. 435.
[155] Prof. Whitney, “Language and the Study of Language,” 1867, p. 259.
[156] Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” ii., pt. ii. p. 523, Bohn’s ed.
[157] Plutarch, “Alexander,” 35.
[158] Humboldt, ib.
[159] “Le mot χαλκος et le mot æs en latin comprennaient à la fois le cuivre et ses alliages colorés en rouge ou en jaune.”—Berthelot, ii. 122 n.
[160] “Golden Prairies,” Paris ed., iii. 49.
[161] Chrestomathie Arabe, iii. 456.
[162] Berthelot, i. 306.
[163] Rāy’s “Hindu Chemistry,” p. 50.
[164] Chrestomathie Arabe, ii. 482.
[165] Dict. Lat.-Hispanico, 1570, but written half a century before.
[166] Minsheu, “Span.-English Dict.,” 1623.
[167] Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, “Hist. of Spanish Literature,” p. 19. He is speaking of the Crusade period.
[168] “Literature of Europe,” &c., c. ix. § 4.
[169] Berthelot, i. 232.
[170] Ib., i. 130, 135.
[171] Gibbon, vi 11, Bury’s ed.
[172] Alexiad, xi. 10.
[173] “Urbem machinis et propugnaculis munit (Alexius), quorum similia nemo viderit unquam.”—Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Script., v. 279.
[174] “Ency. Brit.,” xv. 805.
[175] “The Golden Prairies” of Masudi, Paris, 1873, vii. 100.
[176] “J. Mesuæ ... Opera,” Venice, 1581, p. 85. Fabricius thought this Greek physician might have been Gereon (qui forte est Gereon), Bibliotheca Græca, Hamburg, 1718-52, xiii. 172. I cannot follow MM. Reinaud and Favé and Herr von Romocki in identifying him with Dioskorides. The evidence (from the description of the cyclamen and the preparation of the syrup) seems to point the other way. The past tense, dixit, in the passage in the text, would seem to show that Ibn Serapion was dead when it was written. The present tense, dicit, indicates similarly that “Græcus” was then living, a contemporary of Masawyah’s. Yet Dutens speaks of his having lived “avant le médicin arabe.”
[177] L’Origine des Découvertes, 1796, p. 198.
[178] Bibliot. Græc., xiii. 320. His Bibliot. Latina contains no allusion to Marcus Græcus. Galen died in 200 A.D.
[179] Guttmann, “Manufac. of Explosives,” 1895, i. 8-9.
[180] Recipes 1, 2, 10, &c.
[181] “Artem illam mortiferam et Deo odibilem balistariorum et sagittariorum adversus Christianos et Catholicos exerceri de cetero sub anathemate prohibemus.”—Concil. Rom., ann. 1139, c. 30.
[182] Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l’hist. des Arabes, ii. 17.
[183] Muir’s “Life of Mahomet,” p. 432; Caussin de Perceval, iii. 257.
[184] Devout Moslem commentators explain “baked” to mean “baked in hell.” See Sale’s trans. ad loc.
[185] Masudi’s “Golden Prairies,” Paris ed., v. 166.
[186] “Chachnama,” in Elliot, i. 170.
[187] Ib., vi. 462.
[188] Masudi, ii. 350.
[189] See Burton’s note, “Arab. Nights,” xii. 38.
[190] I have been unable to find a copy of Gauttier’s “Arab. Nights,” Paris, 1822, and quote him as given in Burton, xii 38.
[191] Supplement aux Dictionaires Arabes, Leyden, 1877, under قوس.
[192] Dict. d’Etymologie Française, Brussels, 1888.
[193] viii. 17-18.
[194] “Hailstones full of wrath shall be cast as out of a stone bow.”—“Wisdom of Solomon,” v. 22. “Oh for a stone bow, to hit him in the eye!”—“Twelfth Night,” ii. 5.
[195] Sacy, Chrestomathie Arabe, iii. 68.
[196] “The Book of Archery,” London, 1840, p. 236.
[197] Burton’s ed., 1894, ii. 338.
[198] Burton’s ed., 1894, i. 98.
[199] Elliot, iii. 526.
[200] Elliot, vi. 219.
[201] “Decline and Fall,” &c., vi. 226 n.
[202] In Elliot, vi. 455.
[203] Ib.
[204] Ib., 456.
[205] In Masudi’s “ Golden Prairies,” c. 93:—
وكثر الحريق والهدم ببغداد وعملت المنجنيقات نين القريقين
A large number of instances of the actual use of incendiaries in Asia will be found in General Maclagan’s “Early Asiatic Fire Weapons,” Jour. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, xlv. p. 30 ff.
[206] Shahnama, Mohl’s ed., vol. vi. p. 212, l. 628:—
همي قير و قروره انداحتند زدروازها جنك برساختبد
[207] Schefer, Chrestomathie Persane, i. 48-49.
[208] Reinaud and Favé, p. 65.
[209] William of Tyre, Hist., &c., Paris, 1844, p. 123.
[210] Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 178.
[211] Albert d’Aix, in Reinaud and Favé, p. 62.
[212] Boha ed-Din, ib.
[213] T. Gale, Hist. Anglicani Scriptores, Oxford, 1687, ii. 327.
[214] Paris ed., 1668, p. 39 ff.
[215] ii. 7. Milton uses the phrase, nitrati pulveris igne, in his juvenile Latin poem, “In Quintum Novembris,” l. 120.
[216] See p. 17. He was a Spanish Arab, born near Malaga.
[217] Reinaud and Favé, p. 66 n. If this Arab is identical with Shaykhun al-Omari, the Egyptian grand amir, he died in 758 A.H. (1356 A.D.). Sacy’s Chrest. Arabe, i. 272.
[218] Jähns, p. 775.
[219] See “Cannon at Cressy,” by the present writer, Proceed. R. A. Inst., vol. xxvi.
[220] وعمل الحركة الى مدينة بسطة فاخذ فى حلفها ونشر الحرب عليها ورمى بالالة العظمى المتحدة بالنفط كرة محماة طاقة البرج المنيع—Bib. Arab. Hispan., ii. 7.
[221] “Ille castra movens, multo milite, hostium urbem Baza obsedit, ubi machinam illam maximam naphta et globo instructam, admoto igne, in munitam arcem cum strepitu explosit.”—Ib.
[222] Conde, p. 559.
[223] iii. 83-4.
[224] Hist. du Roy Saint Loys, Paris, 1668, p. 69 ff.
[225] Elliot, ii. 219.
[226] Elliot, iii. 79.
[227] Saxa fulminis more contorquet, De Re Militari, iv. 22.
[228] Ὥσπερ πηηστήρ, Alex., xiii. 3.
[229] Reinaud and Favé, in Journal Asiatique, Oct. 1849, p. 281.
وهم يستعملونه في اعمال النار المتصاعدة والمتحركة فيزيدها خفة وسرعة التهاب. Reinaud and Favé, p. 78. The fire which “rises and moves” is of course rocket composition.
[231] Völsunga Saga, translated from the Icelandic by Magnusson and William Morris, p. 51.
[232] Burton’s “Arab. Nights,” 1894, v. 242.
[233] Elliot, vi. 471 n.
[234] e.g. the red-hot ploughshare wielded with much effect by Bailie Nicol Jarvie at the Clachan of Aberfoyle.
[235] “Hindu Chemistry,” pp. 97-8.
[236] Given by Rāy, “Hindu Chemistry,” p. 96.
[237] See p. 15.
[238] Rāy’s “Hindu Chemistry,” p. 96.
[239] See Table VIII.
[240] See Table VII.
[241] Oct. 21, 1880.
[242] “Camoens,” &c., ii. 632 n.
[243] “Indian Antiquary,” 1878.
[244] “Hindu Chemistry,” pp. 96-7.
[245] “Notices of Sanskrit MSS.,” v. 135.
[246] i. 36.
[247] “Decline and Fall,” &c., iv. 166, Bury’s ed.
[248] “Philosophie Positive,” vi. 114.
[249] Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, xvii. 244.
[250] General Maclagan on “Early Asiatic Fire Weapons,” ib., xlv. 64.
[251] Among other books, the De Naturis Rerum of Nekham, 1157-1217, Rolls Series, p. 183.
The editor, Mr. Thomas Wright, remarks in his preface, xxxv.:—“The mariner’s compass, in a rude form, was in use among the sailors in Western Europe at an early period, and ... instead of being borrowed from the East, as is generally supposed, it seems to have been invented in this part of the world. Of course I do not mean to say that it was not invented in other parts also.” It is explicitly noticed in a Chinese Encyclopædia finished in A.D. 121 (Sir J. Davis, “The Chinese,” &c., ii 185). But Chinese chronology is always suspicious, and, even if this date be correct, there is no evidence to show that the invention ever reached the West. The Chinese seem to have guarded their discoveries and inventions with a jealous eye. Their valuable and accurate astronomical observations were only laid open to Europe by the Jesuits, more than two thousand years after they were made. The printing press was not invented in Europe until the fifteenth century, yet Feng Tao had invented block-printing in China in the tenth (Giles’ “Chinese Literature,” p. 210). According to their own account, the Chinese have used tea since the year 2737 B.C. It was not heard of in Europe until after A.D. 1517, and did not become generally known until the seventeenth century. Brunetto Latini (1230-94), quoted by Davis, gives a curious, but only too probable a reason for the slow progress of the compass in Christendom: “No master mariner dares to use (it), lest he should fall under the suspicion of being a magician.”
[252] Ferishta, “Hist. of the Rise of Mahomedan Power,” &c., trans. by General J. Briggs, 1829, ii. 312.
[253] See Prof. Dowson’s note in Elliot, iv. 268.
[254] Grose gives two plates of these “Ancient Gun Carts” in his “Military Antiquities,” i. 407. They are mentioned in the Acts of the Scotch Parliament, 52 of James II. and 55 of James III.
[255] Favé, Hist. et Tact. des Troit Armes, p. 12. Grewenitz, Traité de l’Organ., &c., de l’Artillerie, p. 28. Wheeled gun-carriages were so little known to the general public as late as 1548, that Rabelais specially mentions some “pieces d’Artillerie sus roue” in his account of a sham fight at Rome in this year. “La Sciomachie,” in his works, ed. by Burgaud des Marets and Rathery, ii. 568.
[256] Elliot, iv. 100.
[257] Elliot, iv. 117.
[258] iv. 65.
[259] “Nullis bombardis nec aliis hujus generis tormentis utuntur.” Epist. Indicæ, M. Gaapari Belgæ, p. 38.
[260] iv. 69.
[261] “Hũa espingarda a quai hia tirando amte nos.” Roteiro da Viagem, &c., 1838, p. 57. Trans. in Charton, Voyageurs Anciens, &c., iii. 247.
[262] “Tous armés d’épées, de guisarmes, d’écus, d’arcs et de flèches.” Charton, ib., 252. Guisarmes, which I have translated by “daggers,” is a word of obscure origin, but it means some small arme de main. We find in Ducange, under gisarma, “cultellos et alia arma minuta.” Diez, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, ii. 217, giusarma.
[263] Faria y Sousa, trans. by Capt J. Stephens, 1695, i. 58.
[264] Faria y Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, i. 48.
[265] “Car les peuples de l’Inde n’avaient en jusque là ni canons ni autres pièce d’Artillerie—مدافع صكاحل وبندقيات.” La Foudre du Yemen, trans. by S. de Sacy in Notices el Extraits des MSS. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, &c., iv. 420. For mukáhal, see Hyde’s Syntagma Dissertationum, 1767, ii. 128. Prof. S. Lane-Poole gives the date as 1508; “Mediæval India,” p. 176.
[266] Ziau-d Din Barni, in Elliot, iii. 146.
[267] Amir Khusru, ib., 75.
[268] Barni, ib., 202.
[269] Khusru, ib., 80.
[270] “Malfuzat-i Timuri,” ib., 424.
[271] “Tuzak-i Babari,” ib., iv. 276.
[272] Ib., 286.
[273] Ib., 251 ff.
[274] Suraj Prakas, in Col. Tod’s “Annals of Rajast’han,” ii. 8.
[275] Ib., i. 310.
[276] Dr. Careri in Churchill’s “Collection of Voyages,” 1744, iv. 237.
[277] Elliot, v. 131-2. Babar’s ironical description of the Bengalis as gunners is taken quite seriously by some writers: “The Bengalis are famous for their skill in Artillery.... They do not direct their fire against a particular point, but discharge at random,” Elliot, iv. 285. Such a procedure is not altogether unknown in Europe. When shooting, Mr. Tracy Tupman was wont to shut his eyes firmly and fire in the air.
Were these gunners friendly Bengalis employed by Babar, or hostile Bengalis working their own guns? If the latter, their guns were probably made by Portuguese deserters. We know that two artisans deserted in 1503 to the Zamorin of Calicut, for whom they offered to make guns of the same nature as the Portuguese, “which they afterwards did.” Castenheda in Kerr’s “Collection of Voyages,” ii. 454, quoted in Elliot, vi. 467.
[278] The 71 grs. avoir. given to the miskal by Burton and Clarke (“Persian Handbook”) would make Babar’s large shot weigh 50 lbs.—an impossible weight, as every officer will admit who remembers our 18 Pr. S.B. bullock batteries in India. Babar could not have dragged 50 Prs. from Caubul to Panipat. Burton admits that the miskal “varies everywhere.” “Arab. Nights,” 1894, vii. 324.
[279] i.e. two men’s wages for one day. See p. 205.
[280] “Hindu Chemistry,” pp. 107-8.
[281] Prof. R. K. Douglas, “China,” in Ency. Brit., v. 663.
[282] “Gunpowder ... among the Chinese,” in Journal of North China Branch of Roy. Asiatic Soc., N.S. vi., 1869-70, p. 74, by W. F. Mayers, F.R.A.S., Chinese Consular Service. “Gunpowder came from the outer barbarians,” says the Wuh-li-siao, published in 1630.
[283] Prof. H. A. Giles, “Hist. of Chinese Literature,” 1901, p. 4.
[284] Mr. J. H. Middleton, “Pottery,” in Ency. Brit., xix. 633.
[285] “Decline and Fall,” &c., iv. 231 n (Bury’s ed.).
[286] The Jesuits, “either seduced by some appearance of truth, or thinking it prudent to conciliate the people whom they were attempting to convert, adopted their marvellous relations regarding the antiquity of their science, and spread them over Europe.”—Mr. R. A. Proctor, “Astronomy,” Ency. Brit., ii. 746.
[287] “Un bon exemple de la fascination exercée par un récit circonstancié est la légende des origines de la Ligue des trois cantons suisses primitifs (Gessler et les conjurés du Grütli) fabriquée au XVIe. siècle par Tschudi, devenue classique depuis le ‘Guillaume Tell’ de Schiller, et qu’on a eu tant de peine à extirper.”
[288] Introd. aux Études Historiques, pp. 136-7.
[289] Mémoires concernant l’Hist., &c., des Chinois, viii. 336.
[290] In Journal Asiatique, Oct. 1849, p. 258.
[291] In Journal Asiatique, Oct. 1849, P. 91.
[292] Reinaud and Favé, in Journal Asiátique, Oct. 1849, p. 284 n.
[293] Reinaud and Favé, in Journal Asiatique, Oct. 1849, p. 291.
[294] As before, p. 91.
[295] Sur la Force des Matières Explosives, ii. 354.
[296] i. 48.
[297] Howorth’s “Hist. of the Mongols,” iii. 97.
[298] Reinaud and Favé, in Journal Asiatique, Oct. 1849, pp. 296, 308.
[299] Romocki, i. 51.
[300] This word, which Diez (Etymolog. Wörterbuch) derives from μάγγανον, betrays the western origin of the machine. It was well known in England:—
“Set Mahound at the mangonel, and millstones throw.”
—“Piers Plowman,” C text, cir. 1393, passus xxi.
[301] Howorth, i. 125.
[302] Yule, in “Marco Polo,” ii. 152.
[303] “The Chinese,” &c., ii. 181.
[304] Howorth, i. 129.
[305] Mayers, p. 93.
[306] Mayers, p. 93.
[307] Ib., 94-5.
[308] Reinaud and Favé, p. 254.
[309] Ency. Metropol., art. “China,” p. 593.
[310] Incarville, in Reinaud and Favé, p. 259.
[311] These Fathers were strangers to the “doute méthodique” of MM. Langlois and Seignobos, and they certainly did not scan the pages of their vast Chinese Encyclopædias with the doubting eye of Heine:—
“Augen gab uns Gott ein Paar,
Dans wir schauen rein und klar;
Um zu glauben was wir lesen,
Wär’ ein Auge gnug gewesen.”
[312] Sir Henry Yule, in Ency. Brit., v. 628.
[313] Mayers, p. 95.
[314] Gibbon, iv. 230, and Appendix 12, by Dr. Bury.
[315] Reinaud and Favé, p. 201 n.
[316] “Golden Prairies,” Paris ed., i. 308.
[317] Elliot, iv. 103.
[318] Incarville, in Reinaud and Favé, p. 254.
[319] Sir J. Davis, “The Chinese,” &c., ii. 182. “Ils ne sont point envieux de rien faire de nouveau,” Incarville, as above, p. 259.
[320] Incarville, as above, p. 252.
[321] Ib.
[322] Father Amiot, in Reinaud and Favé, p. 181.
[323] Incarville, as above, p. 247.
[324] Amiot as above.
[325] Ib.
[326] Mayers, as before, p. 91.
[327] Amiot, as before, p. 183.
[328] Ib.
[329] Hoang-chao-li-ki-thou-chi, trans. by Pauthier in his edition of “Marco Polo,” p. 475 n.
[330] E. H. Parker, “China,” &c., 1901, p. 83.
[331] Mayers, p. 96.
[332] Professor R. K. Douglas, “China” (“Story of the Nations” series), p. 74.
[333] “Decline and Fall,” &c., vii. 11 n (Bury’s ed.).
[334] “Roger Bacon,” in Ency. Brit., by Professor Adamson.
[335] “Quand le sens littéral est absurde, incohérent ou obscur ... on doit présumer un sens détourné.”—Langlois et Seignobos, Introd. aux Études Historiques, p. 127.
[336] “Vulgus (arcana sapientiæ) capere non potest, sed deridet et (abutitur) in sui et sapientum dispendium et gravamen. Quia non sunt margaritæ sapientiæ spargendæ inter porcos.”—Compendium Studii, p. 416.
[337] “Vulgus deridet sapientes, et negligit secreta sapientiæ, et nescit uti rebus dignissimis; atque si aliquid magnificum in ejus notitiam cadat a fortuna, illud pervertit et eo abutitur in damnum multiplex personarum et communitatis.”—De Secretis, cap. viii.
[338] “Insanus est qui aliquid secretum scribit nisi ut a vulgo celetur, et ut vix a studiosissimis et sapientibus possit intilligi.”—Ib.
[339] “Multa mala sequuntur eum qui revelat secreta.”—De Secretis, cap. viii.
[340] Jonson’s “Alchemist,” Act II.
[341] “Cipher” in Rees’ “Cyclopædia” and Klüber’s Kryptographik Lehrbuch, Tübingen, 1809. In a note to these chapters in the Theatricum Chemicum, Zetzner says: “Hic tamen jacta esse Steganographiæ fundamenta certissimum est.”
[342] “Tonitruum et coriscationem.”
[343] Æneas Tacticus adopts the same mode of expression, Table II.
[344] That is, supposing we knew the subject of his letter, or had evidence which made it probable that it was so and so.
[345] To lull suspicion he calls natural saltpetre chalk, a verbum figurativum. Other MSS. read “sal.”
[346] “Tere ipsum fortiter cum aqua salis communis.... Ablue in aceto acerrimo.” The section “Nitri Separatio” of “Aristoteles, de Perfecto Magisterio,” in the Theatrum Chemicum, ed. by Zetzner; a collection of alchemical tracts of the Middle Ages, iii. 68.
[347] Almost literally translated by Whiteborne: “clarified and from earthe and grosse matter diligently purged.” See A, p. 21.
[348] i.e. the lapis Assius = saltpetre. We have here unmistakably a verbum œnigmaticum. The efflorescence of the stone of Assos, which was unknown to the crowd, was of course “not a stone,” although called so. The philosopher’s stone, which was well known by name to the crowd, was likewise “not a stone,” although called so:—
“... ’tis a stone
And not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body.”
—Jonson’s “Alchemist.”
Bacon avails himself of the ambiguity of the phrase, “stone which is not a stone,” to support the delusion created by the title of the chapter, and confirm the unwary in the belief that the philosopher’s stone is under discussion, instead of saltpetre.
[349] He passes suddenly from chalk to cheese—yellow cheese, laughing openly in his reader’s face.
[350] i.e. the cleansed natural saltpetre.
[351] “Put the jar on a gentle fire.”—Hassan, A, p. 24.
[352] “The mother liquid is boiled until the scum ceases to rise.”—Waltham Abbey process, C, p. 19.
[353] “Clear and fair and of an azure colour.”—Whitehorne, F, p. 21.
[354] i.e. the scum and impurities.
[355] i.e. “to drie throughly.”—Whitehorne, I, p. 22.
[356] This repetition corresponds with Whitehorne’s second process; beginning at F´, p. 22.
[357] i.e. the crystals just obtained.
[358] A powder to purge, or to purify and clarify. “Prenez de la chaulx vive et de l’eau de pluye ... et les brouïllez bien ensemble, et puis le laissez reposer ... et se fera forte lexive.... Prenez de la lexive dessus dicte, et mettez vostre salpetre dedans,” &c. “Livre de Canonnerie,” &c., which although not published until 1561, appears to belong to the end of the fifteenth century.—In Reinaud and Favé, pp. 146-7.
[359] Bacon does not name the two substances he alludes to, but Whitehome names two and prescribes the same proportions: “Two parts of unslacked lime and three of oke asshes.”—See A, p. 21. Did Whitehorne have access to Bacon’s MSS.?
[360] Treating ostensibly on gold, Bacon is obliged to use resolve for dissolve.
[361] The alchemical preparation of gold had much in common with the refining of saltpetre. In the “Nitri Preparatio” of Bernard’s and Penoti’s Theatrum Chemicum, iii. 78, we read: “Fac postmodum de eo per omnia ut dicam in preparatione auri, id est, destilla per alambicum et congela,” &c.
[362] i.e. to the laxative.
[363] A verbum œnigmaticum. The Phœnix is a singular animal, as Bacon justly observes, inasmuch as it springs from its own ashes. Its name, therefore, may be figuratively used with perfect propriety to denote animal charcoal, an efficacious agent in clarifying solutions of impure saltpetre.—Bloxam’s “Chemistry,” 8th ed., p. 488.
[364] Bacon appears to have poured the hot solution upon the laxative, precisely as Clarke directs in his “Natural History of Nitre,” London, 1670, p. 42: “Pour the hot liquid on ashes ... ’tis no matter how soon you let it run off the ashes again.”
[365] i.e. the removal of the insoluble impurities.
[366] “Then pour it into the other jar.”—Hassan, A, p. 24.
[367] i.e. into a crystallising jar.
[368] “The solution is kept in constant agitation by poles while cooling.”—Waltham Abbey Regs., H, p. 20.
[369] “The mother liquid, from which the saltpetre flour has been deposited, is boiled down and crystallised.”—Bloxam’s “Chemistry,” 8th ed., p. 488.
[370] Salit petræ is the reading of Zetzner’s Theatrum Chemicum, 1613, v. 962, which is adopted by Reinaud and Favé, p. 123; of Manget’s Bibliotheca Chemica, 1702, i. 624; of the Verosimilia Sacra et Profana of Hoven and Molfenger, 1732, ii. 93; and of the copy used by Romocki, i. 93. Prof. Brewer’s MS. reads sal petræ.
[371] “Atque mala vites incidere falce novellas.”—Vergil, “Bucol.,” iii. 11. The word, however, may be simply novæ.
[372] “Maltha, quæ est genus bitumenis.”—Opus Majus, London, 1733, p. 474.
[373] “Possumus artificialiter componere ignem comburentem, scilicet, ex sale petræ ... ex oleo petroleo ... ex maltha et naphta et consimilibus.... His vicinus est ignis græcus et multa comburentia.”—De Secretis, cap. vi.
[374] “Maltha ... projecta super hominem armatum comburit eum.... Ignis comburens fit ex eo qui cum difficultate potest extingui, nam aqua non extinguit.”—Op. Maj., as above.
[375] “Sunt alia stupenda naturæ. Nam soni velut tonitrua et coruscationes fieri possunt in aere; imo majori horrore quam illa quæ fiunt per naturam. Nam modica materia adaptata, scilicet ad quantitatem unius pollicis, sonum facit horribilem et coruscationem ostendit vehementem.”—De Secretis, cap. vi.
[376] See p. 156.
[377] “Quaedam vero auditum perturbant.... Nullus tonitrui fragor posset talibus comparari. Quædam tantum terrorem visui incutiunt, quod coruscationes nubium longe minus et sine comparatione perturbant.... Experimentum hujus rei capimus ex hoc ludicro puerili, quod fit in multis mundi partibus, scilicet ut instrumento facto ad quantitatem pollicis humani ex violentia illius salis qui sal petrae vocatur, tam horribilis sonus nascitur in ruptura tam modicæ rei, scilicet modici pergameni, quod fortis tonitrui sentiatur excedere rugitum, et coruscationem maximam sui luminis jubar excedit.”—Opus Majus, London, 1733, p. 474. “Offenbar ist hier das Schiesspulver verstanden.”—L. Schneider, “Roger Bacon,” 1873, p. 110. Two centuries before, when referring to Bacon’s remarks on the destruction of the Midianites by Gideon, Borrichius had said: “Hic apertissime loquitur Bacon de nitrato illo sclopetorum pulvere.”—De Ortu &c., Chemiæ, 1668, p. 126.
[378] This is M. Berthelot’s view; Sur la Force des Matières Explosives, Paris, 1883, ii. 358; and it is probably the right one.
... δυσμαχώτατον τέρας·
ὁς δὴ κεραυνοῦ κρείσσον’ εὑρήσει φλόγα,
βροντάς θ’ ὑπερβάλλοντα καρτερὸν κτύπον.
—Æschylus, Prometheus Vinctus, 921.
[380] “State Papers,” Domestic Series, 1581-90.
[381] “Archæologia,” xiii. 27, 397-400. The term slur-bow is, I presume, akin to the German schleuderbogen.
[382] “The Book of Archery,” London, 1840, Pl. xvii., No. 5.
[383] “The Cross-bow,” 1903, fig. 84, p. 129.
[384] Rupert’s Diary, in Warburton, “Prince Rupert,” iii. 163.
[385] Napoleon III., iii. 261.
[386] Ὀστράκινα σκεύη—earthenware vessels. J. Cameniata, p. 527.
[387] Reinaud and Favé, in Jour. Asiatique, 1849.
[388] Froissart’s “Chronicles,” ed. Bouchon; ii., ch. 181, p. 235.
[389] St. 65, ed. Robson.
[390] According to Sir Walter Scott, the Scotch in the beginning of the last century still called crow’s-feet calthrops, a word which goes back to “Piers Plowman,” cir. 1393:—“The Rev. Dr. Heavysterne from the Low Countries sustained much injury by sitting down suddenly and incautiously on three ancient calthrops” (“Antiquary,” ch. iii.).
[391] “Fictili globo incendiarii pulveris.”—P. Jovii, Hist. sui Temp., i., c. 18.
[392] Mém. de Castelnau, ed. Bouchon; xiii., p. 154.
[393] Mém. de Messire du Bellay, ed. Bouchon, vii., p. 632.
[394] Fol. 41. These brazen grenades of Whitehorne’s correspond to the “Kobber-Granater” shown in the books of the Copenhagen Arsenal at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Blom’s Kristian d. IV.’s Artilleri, pp. 268-69.
[395] “The Bombardier,” 1802, p. 147.
[396] Danduli Chronicon, Muratori, xii. 448, in Elliot, vi. 469.
[397] In Elliot, vol. iii.
[398] In Elliot, vii. 125.
[399] In the war of Chiozza. During the attack on the Torre della Bebbe, “furono tirate molte rochette.”—Muratori, xv. 769.
[400] “Ecce quidam adolescens ... quid Græcus ignis potest experiri vellet ... fusum sulphure ignitum ... ad quamdam domum, stipula et stramine coopertam, maximo impetu traxit. Iterum, alium et alium transjecit. Acriori incendio edes accense concremantur.”—Œuvres de R. Blondel, pub. by “Soc. de l’Hist. de Normandie,” ii. 74. Little is known of Blondel’s life, but he was alive in the year 1460. I believe fusus to be the fusée de feu of the Livre de Canonerie, Paris, 1561 (Reinaud and Favé, p. 140), and this incendiary was not a rocket.
[401] “Hist. of Tipu Sultan,” by Husain Kirmani, trans. by Col. Miles, p. 145.
[402] “Hist, of Tipu Sultan,” by Husain Kirmani, p. 109.
[403] “Narrative of the Conquest of Mysore,” Hull, 1804, p. 50.
[404] “Narrative of the Campaign with Tippoo Sultan,” London, 1793, p. 209.
[405] “Narrative of the Conquest of Mysore,” p. 52. Their charge was 1 lb. of powder, and their range about 1000 yards. “Description of Indian and Oriental Armour,” by Lord Egerton of Tatton, 1896, p. 32.
[406] “Ammunition,” pt. ii. p. 174, by Capt. C. O. Browne, R.A.
[407] Sir W. Congreve’s “Concise Account of the Rocket System,” London, 1807, p. 42. He held his commission in the Hanoverian army.
[408] Jähns, p. 523; Romocki, i. 69 n.
[409] Congreve, as above, p. 1.
[410] Ib., p. 42.
[411] “In dieser Hinsicht standen also die Feuerwerker der Zeit des Caligula wol schon auf derselben Höhe wie Congreve, dessen ‘Geheimnis’ zu Anfang des 19 Jahrhunderts so angestaunt wurde!” (p. 516.)
[412] “Furchtbare Wirkung.” Decker’s Gesch. des Geschützwesens, &c., 1822, p. 79.
[413] “Capt Bogue and the Rocket Brigade,” by Col. F. A. Whinyates, late R.H.A., in “Proceed. R.A. Institution,” vol. xxiv.
[414] “Ammunition,” as above, pp. 175-76.
[415] Sloane MSS., 335, 795; and Freind’s “Hist. of Physick,” 1758, ii. 325.
[416] “Bombardes, basilics, jettans boullets de fer, de plomb, de bronze.”—Rabelais (d. 1553), iv., c. 61.
[417] Recipe 13. Extracts from Arderne’s MSS. given by Hewitt, “Ancient Armour,” ii. 284, leave little doubt that Arderne was acquainted with the Liber Ignium of Marcus Græcus.
[418] In the Peninsular War, our men could fire over 100 rounds, the French only 50, without washing out the barrels of their muskets. Marquis de Chambray, Œuvres, v. 293-4.
[419] Fol. 33.
[420] “Certain Discourses ... concerning Divers Weapons,” p. 20.
[421] Sir H. Nicolas, “Hist. of Royal Navy,” ii. 479.
[422] “Pro tribus petris cere ... ad cerandum canubium ad arificiendum pulveris bumbardorum in castro de Edinburgh,” &c. “Chronicles of Scotland,” published by the Deputy Clerk-Register, vi. 495-97. In these documents a cross-bow is called, “arcus cum circulo.”
[423] “Acts of (English) Privy Council,” N.S., xvii. 392.
[424] “Seaman’s Dictionary,” under “Powder.”
[425] “Chemical Essays,” 1781, ii. 10. This led to a Parliamentary inquiry.
[426] “A Statement of Facts,” &c., by General Sir W. Congreve, 1811, pp. 18-19.
[427] Brackenbury, iv. 292.
[428] Fol. 33.
[429] “Art of Shooting in Great Ordnance,” p. 2.
[430] Jähns, p. 804.
[431] Mieth mentions glazing in 1684; Artilleriæ Recentior Praxis, Franckfurt, pt. ii. c. 55.
[432] This is the only reason given by Clarke for the introduction of corned powder. “Natural History of Nitre,” 1670, p. 88.
[433] “Das knollen bullfer ij pfund mer tud denn gereden bullfer iij pfund.” Firebook, 1400-50, in Romocki, i. 182.
[434] “‘Of a verity the shooting of the foemen doth begin to increase,’ exclaimed the Rev. Gabriel Kettledrummle; ‘peradventure some pellet may attain unto us even here. Lo! I will ensconce me behind the cairn, as behind a strong wall of defence.’ ‘He’s but a coward body after a’,’ said Cuddy; ‘he’s but a daidling coward body.’” “Old Mortality,” chap. xvii.
[435] Chap. xxiv.
[436] Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” 1866, iii. 578-79.
[437] Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” iii. 556.
[438] Ib., 558.
[439] Ib., 578.
[440] Ib., 581.
[441] “Acts of Privy Council,” 1588, N.S., xvi. 146.
[442] Ib., 28th December 1595, xxv. 137.
[443] Rogers, v. 752.
[444] Waltham Abbey.
[445] “Fyne corne powder for small shot.” “Acts of Privy Council,” 8 Ap., 1588; xvi. 25.
[446] Rogers, i. 454.
[447] Rev. J. Hunter in Archæologia, xxxii. 382, who quotes the payments made by Wm. de Stanes in the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward III.
[448] Rogers, ii. 754.
[449] Ib., iii. 205.
[450] Ib., iv., Pièces Justificatives, No. 6, p. xliv.
[451] Hallam’s “Middle Ages,” i. 211. On the accession of Louis XI. (1461) “the livre was only about 1/15 of its original value ... and in 1789 the livre had come to be only 1/78 of its weight in the time of Charlemagne. “Money,” by Prof. Bastable, in Ency. Brit., 9th ed., xvi. 727.
[452] “Treatise on the Coins of the Realm,” by (the first) Lord Liverpool, reprinted London, 1880, p. 40.
[453] In 1580 saltpetre was selling in the north-west of India at a half-penny a pound. “Manufacture of Gunpowder,” Col. W. Anderson, 1862, p. 16.
[454] Caxton’s “Myrrour and Description of the Worlde,” 1480, Part II., c. 21.
[455] M. Berthelot in Revue des Deux Mondes, 15th August 1891, p. 817.
[456] K. Vitterhets Hist. och Antiq. Acads. Handr., Stockholm, iv. 337.
[457] Kapten F. A. Spak’s Öfversigt öfver Artilleriets Uppkomst och Utveckling i Europa, p. 12.
[458] “History of Inventions,” Bohn’s ed., ii. 509.
[459] “Natural History of Nitre,” London, 1670, p. 21.
[460] Napoleon III., iii. 205.
[461] There were exceptions, such as blasting powder.
[462] “The Gunner,” p. 145.
[463] Jähns, 804 n.
[464] Napoleon III., iii. 232.
[465] Chap. 24.
[466] Modelles, Artifices de feu, &c., pp. 95, 97.
[467] Napoleon III., iii. 329.
[468] “Receuil de Plusieurs Machines Militaires et Feux d’Artifices pour la guerre.” De la diligence Thybovril et J. Appier dit Hanzelet; Pont-à-Mousson, 1620, liv. iv. p. 12.
[469] “Nun werden unterechiedliche Pulver gemacht, jedoch aber allein drey Sorten zum meistens gebraucht.” Halinitro Pyrbolia, Ulm, p. 6.
[470] Chap. xxiii. fol. 28.
[471] “Receuil de Plusieurs Machines Militaires et Feux d’Artifices,” &c., Pont-à-Mousson, 1620, p. 14.
[472] “The Gunner,” p. 145.
[473] “The Gunner” p. 145.
[474] pp. 4, 5.
[475] “Inventions and Devices,” 1578; No. 54, “Art of Shooting,” &c., p. 28.
[476] Ib., Preface.
[477] Halinitro Pyrbolia, Ulm, 1627, p. 9.
[478] Chap. xvi. p. 29.
[479] Napoleon III., iv. 54.
[480] Ib., 53.
[481] “Traité ... de fabriquer la Poudre,” &c. Bottée and Riffault, 1811, p. lij.
[482] Marquis de Chambray, Œuvres, v. 293-4.
[483] “Dieses Pendel wurde mit Recht als ein epochmachende Erfindung bezeichnet.” Gen. H. Müller, Entwickelung der Feldartillerie, Berlin, 1893, i. 23. To save the time of any of my readers who wish to read Gen. Müller’s remarks on our Artillery, I may mention that they will not be found under the heading “England,” but under the comprehensive heading Die kleineren Staaten, grouped with Greece, Switzerland, &c., ii 272.
[484] See Wheatstone’s own account of his instrument in the Comptes Rendus de l’Acad. des Sciences, 1845, tom. xx. pp. 1554-61.
[485] “Nous reconnaissons, avec l’abbé Moigno, que M. Wheatstone a eu le premier l’idée de la belle application dont il est ici question.... Il a fallu du temps et du travail pour rendre féconde, dans les expériences d’Artillerie, la belle idée de M. Wheatstone.” Cap. Navez, L’Application de l’Electricité à la mesure de la Vitesse des Projectiles, Paris, 1853. PP· 4, 5.
[486] “Report on Experiments on the Properties ... of Cannon Powder,” Boston, Mass., 1861, pp. 174, 299. Table VI. is taken from this Report.
[487] 1886.
[488] Bk. IV., c. 62.
[489] Romocki, ii. 7-10.
[490] “Vulgar Errors,” 1648, Bk. II., c. 5.
[491] Roger Bacon’s powder, see chap. viii.
[492] Doctor Arderne’s powder, a laboratory receipt.
[493] Whitehorne’s “ordinary” common powder, chap. xxiii., fol. 28.
[494] Nye, pp. 4, 5.
[495] Sir James Turner’s Pallas Armata, 1670, p. 188.
[496] Robins’ “New Principles of Gunnery,” 1742, p. 120.
[497] Bishop Watson’s “Chemical Essays,” 1781, ii. 16.
[498] MS. in Bib. Nat., Paris, given in Lacabane’s Bib. de l’École des Chartes, 2 ser., i. 51. The quantity of charcoal is not given.
[499] Spak’s Öfversigt öfver Artilleriets Uppkomst, &c., Stockholm, 1878-81, p. 66.
[500] Ib., p. 62. Spak gathers from Fronsperger that the manufacture of powder in Germany was in a very backward state during the second half of the sixteenth century: “att kruttillverkning i Tyskland äfven under senare hälften af 1500-talet befann sig på en särdeles primitiv ståndpunkt, framgår af Fronspergers beskrifning öfver krutets korning.” A Brandenburg MS. of 1597 gives a powder of 73.5 : 13.7 : 10.8, but this must have been for small arms. C. von Decker’s Geschichte des Geschützwesens, &c., 1822, p. 87, powder No. 31.
[501] Blom’s Kristian d. IV.’s Artilleri, Copenhagen, 1877, p. 49.
[502] Napoleon III., iii. 329. The grains of this powder were as large as hazel nuts.
[503] Spak, p. 166.
[504] Castner’s cocoa powder, ballistically the best powder ever made. Romocki, ii. 31.
[505] "Romaunt of the Rose," 4196, attributed to Chaucer.
[506] Original Parchemin parmi les titres scellés de Clairambault, xxv. fol. 1825; Bib. Nat., Paris (in Brackenbury, iv. 291).
[507] Estimated by Sir H. Brackenbury.
[508] Reinaud and Favé, p. 168.
[509] “Calendar, State Papers,” Dom. Ser., 1581-90, March 30, 1588.
[510] “Acts of the Privy Council,” New Ser., xvi. 25.
[511] Napoleon III., iii. 96.
[512] Wright and Halliwell’s Reliquiæ Antiquæ, London, 1841.
[513] Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., xv., col. 182.
[514] Rymer’s Fœdera, vii. 187.
[515] No reliance can be placed on the document given in Libri’s Hist. des Sciences Mathém. en Italie, iv. 487, which states that there were cannon and iron shot in Florence on the 11th February 1326. Libri was expelled from the French Academy, and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in 1850 for falsifying and selling public documents which he had stolen from various institutions.
[516] Napoleon III., i. 358.
[517] Beringuccio calls iron shot “cosa nova all’ uso della guerra; perchè non prima (che io sappi) furono vedute palle di ferro in Italia per tirarle con artiglierie, che quelle che ci condusse Carlo Re di Franchia contra Re Ferdinando l’anno 1495.”—Pyrotechnia, Venice, 1559, p. 247.
[518] MSS. germ, qu., 1018.
[519] Meynert’s Gesch. des Kriegswesens, &c., Vienna, 1868, i. 378.
[520] A Rege ipso institutum; Heidenstein, De Bell. Moscovito, 1588, p. 40. They were in use in Denmark in 1592. Blom’s Kristian d. IV.’s Artilleri, p. 266.
[521] Geneva, 1645, p. 303.
[522] De Re Militari, Verona, 1472, lib. 10, c. iv. p. 267.
[523] Napoleon III., iii. 80.
[524] Mr. J. Burtt, in Archæol. Journal, xix. 68.
[525] W. L. Clowes, “The Royal Navy,” 1897, i. 149.
[526] Benedict. Veron., De Rebus Carol. VIII., in Eccardi, Script. Rer. Germ., ii (Jähns).
At the siege of Bilqan in Persia by the Moguls under Prince Hulágu in 1256, stones not being procurable for the machines, wooden shell filled with lead were employed with good effect.—Heft Iqlim, Persian MS. in Bib. Nat., Paris, No. 356, fol. 500.
[527] Average price, 1371-80. Rogers’ “Hist. of Agriculture and Prices,” i. 484.
[528] 90.5 per cent. copper and 9.5 per cent. tin; copper at 2s. 34d. per lb. (average, 1303-53); tin at 3.41d. per lb. (average, 1371-80). Mr. Rogers notices the rareness of copper, 1350-1400. Ib., i. 484; ii. 531. The bronze of an Egyptian mirror, cir. 1750 B.C., was found by M. Berthelot to consist of 91 per cent. copper and 9 per cent. tin.—Introd. Alchimistes Grecs, p. 221.
[529] Ib., i. 605 (average, 1371-80). There is some little uncertainty about the exact price of lead owing to the “fother” having three meanings. “In the Book of Rates it is said to be two thousand pound-weight; at the mines it is twenty-two hundred and a half; and among the Plummers at London, nineteen hundred and a half.” “The New World of Words,” 6th ed., by E. Phillips, London, 1706. I have taken the 2000 lbs. of the Book of Rates.
[530] There was no cast-iron in the fourteenth century.
[531] I have taken the proportions for bronze as given for shell by G. della Valle in his Vallo, Venice, 1521: 75 per cent. copper and 25 per cent. tin, which had a sp. gr. of 8.4 and cost 2.6d. per lb.
[532] This gives a sp. gr. of 3.1, and shows that the stone was probably limestone, although Nye objects to “freestone” for shot and recommends “marble, pibble stones, and hard blew stones,” p. 58. “Pibbilston” is found in Wiclif´s Bible, Prov. xx. 17, cir. 1383.
[533] Limestone sold in 1664 at 3s. 6d. a ton; Rogers, v. 508. But the wages of a gunstone-maker in Queen Elizabeth’s reign were 6d. a day, or about 3s. 6d. of our money. Brackenbury, v. 2 n..
[534] See p. 185.
[535] The early gunners suffered terribly from the bursting of their guns. James II. of Scotland was killed in 1460 by the bursting of a gun, and a bombard burst near Paris in 1479, killing fourteen men, and wounding fifteen or sixteen. Libre de Faits, Jean de Troyes, ed. Bouchon, p. 340. The Emperor Babar tells us of a gun that burst in India in 1527-8, killing eight men. Elliott’s “Hist. of India,” iv. 272. And so on.
[536] Brackenbury, v. 30.
[537] Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., xvii., col. 558.
[538] R. Norton, “The Gunner,” &c., London, 1628, p. 158.
[539] Entwickelung des Kriegswesens, Breslau, 1886, iii. 266.
[540] Quellen zur Geschichte des Feuerwaffen, 1872, A, viii., xix.
[541] Ducas, Hist. Byzant., Bonn, 1831, p. 211.
[542] Sabellicus, Hist. Venet., Dec. iii., lib. 10 (Jähns).
[543] Clarendon’s “Hist. of the Great Rebellion,” p. 522. Boillot calls orgues “barriquades,” Modelles Artifices de feu, &c., Chaumont, 1598, p. 189.
[544] See Admiralty survey of Gibraltar, by Capt. Aldrich, R.N.
[545] “Die Granate vor dem Stück crepirt ... wodurch ein Artillerist das Leben verloren habe.” Neues militärisches Hannovranisches Journal, Stück iv., p. 225, kindly communicated to me by Major W. Balck, German General Staff. Apparently by an eye-witness.
[546] Drinkwater’s “Siege of Gibraltar,” 1786, p. 87.
[547] “Die Bomben fielen so tief in den Sand, dass die Stücke niemand schaden konnten.” Hannovranisches Journal, as above.
[548] Capt. Sayer’s “Hist. of Gibraltar,” 1862, p. 291.
[549] Drinkwater, p. 89. The Hanoverian officer, speaking of the trial, says: “Versuch, welcher der Erwartung vollkommen entsprach.” Of the effect of the fire on the enemy he says: “ Die Brandröhren (waren) so genau bestimmt, dass die Bombe oft den Feind über den Köpfen crepirte ... und incommodirte den Feind unaufhörlich.” Journal, as before.
[550] “Universal Military Dictionary,” by Capt. G. Smith, R.A., 1779, art. “Shell.”
[551] Writing on 5th April 1813, Shrapnel said it was “nearly thirty years” since he began his experiments. “Synopsis of Reports and Experiments by the Ordnance Select Committee: Shrapnel Shell,” 1858.
[552] “Ammunition,” by Capt. (afterwards Col. Sir V. D.) Majendie, R.A., 1867, i. 350 ff.; “Memoirs of Sir J. Sinclair,” ii. 244.
[553] Shrapnel’s shell failed at the first trial, 3rd June 1803—they were too thin. After the second trial, 29th June 1803, “about a dozen” were recommended to be supplied to ships for each carronade.—Ord. Sel. Committee, “Shrapnel Shell,” p. 2.
[554] Die Shrapnels: eine Erfindung des 16-ten Jahrhunderts, in “Archiv für die Officiere der K. Preuss. Artillerie, &c.,” Berlin, 1852, Band 32, p. 160. Toll does not allude to Shrapnel personally. He gives the text of Zimmerman’s MS., which I quote above.
[555] One of Boillot’s mortar shell, which nobody has yet claimed to have been a Shrapnel, was of minimum thickness, “afin qu’elle rompe plus facilement”—Modelles, Artifices de feu, &c., Chaumont, 1598, p. 163.
[556] Some of Boillot’s mortar shell contained bullets, not only inside but outside, where they were stuck into some glutinous substance with which the shell was covered. Ib., p. 167.
[557] Capt. May, R.A., reported that before reaching the Great Belt, 1807 (on the voyage to the siege of Copenhagen), Shrapnel’s own fuzes were found to be so affected by the damp as to be unserviceable, and that others had to be improvised.—Ord. Sel. Com., “Shrapnel Shell,” for 19th June 1809.
[558] “Ehe die Zünder nicht zu der Vollkommenheit gekommen waren, genau tempirt werden zu konnen, was erst gegen das Ende des vorigen (18-ten) Jahrhunderts eintrat, konnte uberhaupt von der Erreichung einer Wirkung, wie sie Shrapnel vor Augen hatte, gar nicht die Rede sein; und es ist das unstreitbare Verdienst Shrapnels, dass er die Vervollkommung der Zünder zur Erreichung bis dahin nicht gekannter Kartätschwirkung benuzte.”—“Notiz über die Geschichte der Shrapnells,” by Hauptmann Meyer, in Archiv für d. Offic. d. K. Preuss. Art., &c., 5 Band, zwieter Heft, p. 157.
[559] Given further on.
[560] “Mag auch nicht ain Hagel gemacht werden der ganntz vom Rohr fert und sich erst uber etlich hundert Schrytt nachet oder feer wie man will von einander thut und sich austhaylet?”
[561] Napoleon III., iii. 264.
[562] Modelles, &c., p. 163.
[563] “Hydrodynamics,” in Ency. Brit., p. 457.
[564] “Instrumenta naviganda possunt fieri sine hominibus remigantibus, ut naves maximæ, fluviales et marinæ, ferantur unico homine regente, majori velocitate quam si plenæ essent hominibus.... Item possunt fieri instrumenta volandi.”—De Secretis, c. iv.
[565] “Inventions and Devices,” No. 42, fol. 31-2.
[566] Cæsar, De Bell. Gall., v. 43. See also p. 90 here.
[567] Tacitus, “Hist.,” ii. 21.
[568] See p. 202.
[569] See p. 4.
[570] “Das es dir den hals nit abstoss.” Romocki, i. 189.
[571] Romocki, i. 192 n.
[572] Napoleon III., iii. 156. Whitehorne describes a similar fireball, in which tow is used instead of cloth.
[573] Jähns, 810.
[574] “Ungefähr aus derselben Zeit.” Romocki, i. 189.
[575] Valturio’s plate is reproduced, ib., p. 193.
[576] “Ye vester darynn gestozzen, ye pesser.” Berlin Firebook, in ib., p. 192.
[577] “Es waren eiserne Kugeln von geringer Cohärenz, die, mit, Pech und Harz gefüllt, angezündet, aus den Mauerbrechern geschossen wurden. Beim Aufschlagen zerschellten diese Kugeln und die Stücke, von deren jedem eine heftige Flamme emporloderte, wurden umhergeschleudert. Das kleineste von ihnen konnte schwer verletzen, weil das Pech hinderte, es abzuschütteln. Niemand vermochte vor diesem Feuer auf den Mauern zu bleiben.” Bembo, Opera, 1556, i. 15, in Jähns, 810.
[578] Romocki, ii. 21.
[579] “Haec vocatur scientia experimentalis quæ negligit argumenta, quoniam non certificant, quantumcunque sint fortia, nisi simul adsit experientia conclusionis.... Sola experientia certificat hic, et non argumentum.” Opus Tertium, c. 13.
[580] Daniel’s Hist. de la Milice Française, 1724, i. 240.
[581] Major Ralph Adye, R.A., “The Bombardier,” &c., 1802.
[582] “Annals,” &c., p. 584, for the year 1543. Stow died in 1605. The 15½″ mortar, under Firemaster Thomas Wright, which accompanied a small force sent by Cromwell in 1651 to reduce the Royalist castle of Elizabeth in Jersey, may have been one of Bawd and Collet’s. Between five and ten rounds were fired daily for several days without any damage to the piece, although the carriage broke down completely on two occasions. The range was 1540 yards, and the shooting accurate. The first round, we may feel certain, was laid with extreme care. “I proffered to lay a wager of ten pounds with Captain Dover,” says the Firemaster, “that my first shot should strike the Castle, ... and by God’s providence it did strike one side of the great Tower, where the Granado brake” (i.e. exploded). The second shell “brake verie kindly,” and for the third he “altered (the) degrees of elevation.” Captain Dover may have paid his bet, but the Ordnance Office forgot to remit Wright’s pay; hence the “Perfect Narrative of the Particular Service performed by Firemaster Thomas Wright,” &c. &c., 1651. The word explode is not found before the seventeenth century—see Dr. Murray’s “New English Dictionary”—and was sparingly used in Wright’s time.
[583] “Italus a Parmensi ad Foederatos perfugiens, inauditam artem jactabat parandi vasa, cavatosque e ferro aut lapide globos, qui in obsessas urbes adigerentur, impleti ejus naturæ materiâ, ut simul ignem concepissent, in innumeros quasi acinos dissilirent.”
[584] See the accounts of the bailiffs of St. Omer in 1342, in Napoleon III., iii. 77.
[585] Ib., p. 149.
[586] Reinaud and Favé, p. 158.
[587] Whitehorne, c. 25.
[588] Portfires go back to about 1700. Muller’s “Treatise on Artillery,” p. 202.
[589] The battle of Uddevalla in Sweden, 1677, was decided by armes blanches, a prolonged storm of rain having put a stop to all firing. Crichton and Wheaton’s “Scandinavia,” p. 109.
[590] Père Amiot, in Reinaud and Favé, p. 183.
[591] Hassan, ib., 37.
[592] Nye, p. 68 bis, where it is called “priming.”
[593] “Quickmatch,” in official “Treat. on Ammunition,” p. 430.
[594] Muller’s “Treatise on Artillery,” 1768, p. 203.
[595] General Sir Howard Douglas, “Naval Gunnery,” 1860, p. 458. Sir Charles Douglas also introduced into his ship (at his own expense) the quill tubes he had invented for naval use, and flannel cartridge cases which at that time were used “for artillery cartridges of all sorts.” Captain G. Smith, “Univer. Mil. Dict.,” 1779; “Laboratory.”
[596] “Artillery Equipment,” Colonel F. Miller, V.C., R.A, Pt. II., p. 84. It is uncertain to what extent flint-locks were adopted for the Artillery. “Ammunition,” by Sir V. D. Majendie, i. 192.
[597] “Naval Gunnery,” as before.
[598] The above facts are chiefly taken from the “Treatise on Ammunition,” by the late Colonel Sir V. D. Majendie, R.A., 1867; and the work on “Artillery Equipment,” by the late Colonel F. Miller, V.C., R.A.
[599] “Elementary Lectures on Artillery,” by Major C. H. Owen and Captain T. L. Dames, Woolwich, 1861.
[600] Reinaud and Favé, p. 44.
[601] “Quand tu voudras attaquer ton adversaire, mets le feu à la rose,” ib., 38. “Tu mets le feu aux roses et tu lances la marmite,” ib., 43.
[602] “Inventions and Devices,” 1578, p. 39.
[603] For instance: “Adviserez que le trou d’icelle (the shell) soit du costé de la bouche dudit mortier.” Modelles, Artifices du Feu, &c., 1598, p. 163.
[604] As happened centuries afterwards with Shrapnel’s fuzes when cut “short.”
[605] “Art of Shooting in Great Ordnance,” p. 13.
[606] Ib., pp. 30, 31.
[607] Among the stores detailed by Firemaster T. Wright in his “Perfect Narrative,” &c., of his expedition to Jersey, 1651, are found “1000 Fuzes for shels, 600 hand Fuzes.”
[608] “Invention die bishero noch nit ist gebraucht worden.” Archeley, 1621, p. 119. The Spanish Tratado de Artilléria, 1613, I have not seen and rely upon the French and German translations, both by J. T. Brey, the former entitled Artillerie, &c., the latter Archeley, &c. Either of them has been carelessly executed—perhaps both of them.
[609] “La bouche du tuyeau sur la poudre de la charge de la ditte pièces.” Artillerie, p. 119.
[610] “150 schritt”—geometrical paces, I presume: 1 geom. pace = 5 ft.
[611] Wachthaus. The French translation has corps de garde.
[612] Blom’s Kristian d. IV.’s Artilleri, p. 277.
[613] P. 63 bis.
[614] Pr. Lieut. W. Ritter von Breithaupt, Der Entwicklungsgang und die darauf gegründete Systematik der Zünderwesens, &c., 1868, p. 18.
[615] “Gegen das Ende des 16 ten Jahrhunderts fiel man darauf, Granaten aus Kanonen zu schiessen. Da aber die ersten Versuche nicht mit gehöriger Vorsicht, und überhaupt mit zu starker Pulverladung angestellt wurden, so misslangen sie, und man behielt die sicherere Art, sie aus Haubitzen zu werfen, bei.” Major C. von Decker, Geschichte des Geschützwesens, &c., 1822, p. 74.
[616] In firing against buildings, “ist es nicht eben von nöthen auf das Tempo genau Achtung zu geben.” Mieth, Artill. Recent. Praxis, Leipsig, 1683, lib. iii. c. 34.
[617] In firing against troops, “the fuze must have such a length as ... to set fire to the powder as soon as the shell touches the ground.” “Universal Mil. Dict.,” Captain G. Smith, R.A., 1779; “Laboratory.”
[618] A Chinese shell was thrown from the deck of one of our vessels into the sea, I forget by whom, in the attack on the Peiho Forts, 1860.
[619] As was done more than once during the dynamite outrages in London some years ago.
[620] At the siege of Gloucester, during the Great Rebellion, a grenado fell near Southgate; “but a woman coming by with a pail of water, threw the water thereon and extinguished the phuse thereof, so that it brake not.” Vicars’ “Jehovah Jireh,” 1646, i. 402.
[621] “Per tempus quo quispiam non festinanter Symbolum Apostolorum recitare possit,” p. 174. Watches were invented by Huygens in 1674, and independently by Hooke in 1675. Ball’s “Mathematical Recreations,” 1892, p. 216.
[622] Zur Geschichte der Artillerie, by Hauptmann C. Schneider, in Oesterreichische Mil. Zeitung, Wien, 1863, No. 79.
[623] Theoria et Praxis Artill., Nürnberg, 1682, Part II., p. 62.
[624] “Brände von Holtz, Papier oder Eisen,” ib.
[625] “Man das Tempo entweder durch einen perpendicul oder nach einem perfecten und gewissen Tacte erkundigen muss,” ib.
[626] “Das rechte Tempo nun zu finden, kan auf keine audere Weise, als aus den ersten Würffen erlernet werden.” Artill. Recent. Praxis, l. iii., c. 34, p. 45.
[627] “Treatise on Artillery,” 1768, p. 204.
[628] Ib., p. 203.
[629] MS. letter kindly lent to me by Col. F. Whinyates, late R.H.A.
[630] Gen. Piobert’s notes, communicated to Prof. Turquem and Capt. Favé, the translators of Gen. C. von Decker’s Expériences sur les Shrapnel, Paris, 1847, p. 320.
[631] “Ammunition,” by Col. Sir V. D. Majendie, i. 235. The Prussians had a similar series of fuzes about the same time; Breithaupt, Der Entwicklungsgang ... der Zünderwesens, p. 21. On the 21st Nov. 1808, Shrapnel proposed to carry the bored fuzes in canvas bags painted different colours. Ord. Sel. Com., “Shrapnel Shell.”
[632] Hasans er-Rammah in Reinaud and Favé, p. 25. This composition was called “priming,” and belonged to the “slow receipt” family.
[633] Napoleon III., iii. 275.
[634] Nye, p. 63, bis.
[635] Spak’s Öfversigt öfver Artilleriets Uppkomst, &c., p. 157.
[636] Muller’s “Treatise on Artillery,” 1768, p. 203.
[637] J. G. von Hoyer’s Allgemeines Wörterbuch, Tübingen, 1804.
[638] 5″ fuze, official “Treatise on Ammunition.”
[639] Beitrag zur Gesch. d. Artillerie, Haupt. C. Schneider, Wien, 1864.
[640] See plate in Romocki, i. 343.
[641] Art. Mag. Artilleriæ, &c., pt. i. bk. 4, c. 3. They were called “blind shell” because they gave out no light in their flight.
[642] “Wer ein wenig Vernunft hat und nicht gar tumm ist, wird klar sehen dass dieselbe Invention einen sehr bald in die andere Welt schicken kan.” Artill. Recent. Prax., c. xi. p. 13.
[643] Theor. et Praxis Artill., pt. i. p. 68.
[644] “Cutting the Rigging,” Proposition iii.
[645] MS. in Royal Library, Berlin, q. in Romocki, i. 347.
[646] Cap. 48.
[647] See his Patent, No. 3032, 11th April 1807.
[648] We are told by Mr. Greener that “all the gunsmiths in England” laid claim to the invention of the cap: “The Gun and its Development,” 3rd ed., 1859, p. 110. How many of them, if any, established their claim I do not know; but it is absolutely certain that the notion of a copper cap struck Colonel Hawker in 1818. He gave a sketch of what he wanted to the celebrated Joe Manton, who made him some caps and adapted a gun for their use. “Instructions to Young Sportsmen,” by Col. Peter Hawker, 11th ed., 1859, p. 76.
[649] The concussion fuze was set in action by the shock of discharge; the percussion fuze by the shock of impact with the target.
[650] Reinaud and Favé, p. 180.
[651] Marcus Græcus, recipe 33.
[652] Hassan er-Rammah in Reinaud and Favé, p. 24.
[653] 1, 2, and 3 oz. rockets in Nye, p. 82.
[654] Signal rocket, official “Treat. on Ammunition.”
[655] Hassan, as above.
[656] Official “Treat. on Ammunition.”
[657] Hassan, in Reinaud and Favé, p. 27.
[658] Kentish’s “Pyrotechnist’s Treasury,” 1878, p. 187, No. 13.