The small early guns, whose recoil was insignificant, seem to have been fired directly by thrusting a hot wire into the powder through the vent.[584] When guns grew bigger, this method had to be abandoned and priming powder came into use.[585] For centuries priming powder consisted of serpentine, or some slow-burning mixture, which was at first laid in a train from some convenient spot to the vent, and was afterwards simply poured on the vent. The advantage of the former proceeding, in securing the safety of the gunners, is pointed out in a very old French book:— “vous pourrez retirer affin que vostre baston (gun) ne vous face dommage.”[586] In the latter case, the priming was ignited in various ways:—by a hot wire; by a match fixed in a lint-stock, which was “a staffe of a yard or two yards long;”[587] and later by a portfire attached to a portfire-stick.[588]
The objection to priming powder was its liability to be wetted by rain, or blown away by wind.[589]
TABLE XII.
Matches.
| Chinese. 13th Century. | Arab. 13th Century. | English. 17th Century. | English. 20th Century. |
| Cord soaked in a mixture of sulphur and water (and well dried).[590] | Cord of cotton and palm leaves soaked in naphtha and dried,[591] | “Cottonweeke dipped in gunpowder wet with water and dried).[592] | “Cottonwick boiled in a solution of mealed powder and gum, and afterwards dusted over with mealed powder before it is dry.[593] |
Tubes.
Priming powder was ultimately replaced by small tubes, full of combustible matter, which fitted into the vents of guns. Of the multitude of these tubes only a few can be mentioned here. Tubes filled with quickmatch, and primed with mealed powder and spirits of wine, are said to have been in use in the first half of the eighteenth century.[594] In 1778 Captain Sir Charles Douglas, R.N., invented the gun-flint-lock. It was simply a flint-and-steel apparatus, fastened to the ventplate of the gun and worked by a lanyard, which ignited a tube placed in the vent. Captain Douglas introduced this lock into his ship, the Duke, at his own expense, and it worked so well that it was officially adopted for the Navy in 1790.[595] It was owing, apparently, to the personal intervention of General Sir Alexander Dickson that this lock was at length adopted for the Artillery in 1820.[596] In a letter to Sir Howard Douglas (son of Sir Charles), 18th April 1818, Sir Alexander gives his reasons for advocating the change:—“By the employment of slow match only, the fire is frequently retarded, and nothing can be more dangerous than lighted portfires in a battery ... I have ever prevented, as much as in my power, the use of portfires.”[597]
A percussion tube, invented by Mr. Marsh, of the Royal Arsenal Surgery, was approved for the Navy in 1831: the Artillery was not supplied with a similar tube until 1846.
In 1841 Lieutenant Siemens, of the Hanoverian Army, laid a friction tube before the officials of Woolwich Arsenal, which was tried and, owing to whatever defects, was rejected. Just ten years later Mr. Tozer, of the Royal Laboratory, made the copper friction tube now in use. It was officially adopted in 1853.[598]