The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gunpowder and Ammunition, by Henry W. L. Hime.

436 Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” 1866, iii. 578-79.

437 Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” iii. 556.

441 “Acts of Privy Council,” 1588, N.S., xvi. 146.

442 Ib., 28th December 1595, xxv. 137.

445 “Fyne corne powder for small shot.” “Acts of Privy Council,” 8 Ap., 1588; xvi. 25.

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.

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.

464 Napoleon III., iii. 232.

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.

475 “Inventions and Devices,” 1578; No. 54, “Art of Shooting,” &c., p. 28.

477 Halinitro Pyrbolia, Ulm, 1627, p. 9.

478 Chap. xvi. p. 29.

479 Napoleon III., iv. 54.

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.

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.

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.

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..

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.

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.

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.