one general management, one cannot help realising the vast difference between old systems and the new. In one portion of the establishment the crude ores are received and smelted and treated, with a small force and with ease, until the polished metal is complete and ready for manipulation in the manufacture of a hundred different objects. In another part ponderous or smaller lathes and planing machines are turning forth many varied forms; in quiet corners the boring, drilling, and riveting machines are doing their work without the clang of hammers; in another, an apparently young student is conducting the scientific operation of coating or gilding metals; in another, girls may be seen with light machines, stamping, or burnishing, or assembling the different parts of finished metal ware; and the motive power of all this is the silent but allpowerful electric current received from the smoothrunning dynamo giant who works with vast but unseen energy in a den by himself, not a smoky or a dingy den, but light, clean, polished, and beautiful as the workshop of a god.

CHAPTER XVI.

ORDNANCE, ARMS AND EXPLOSIVES.

ALTHOUGH the progress in the invention of firearms of all descriptions seems slow during the ages preceding the 19th century, yet it will be found on investigation that no art progressed faster. No other art was spurred to activity by such strong incentives, and none received the same encouragement and reward for its development. The art of war was the trade of kings and princes, and princely was the reward to the subject who was the first to invent the most destructive weapon. Under such high patronage most of the ideas and principles of ordnance now prevailing were discovered or suggested, but were embodied for the most part in rude and inefficient contrivances.

The art waited for its success on the development of other arts, and on the mental expansion and freedom giving rise to scientific investigation and results.

The cannon and musket themselves became the greatest instruments for the advancement of the new civilisation, however much it was intended otherwise by their kingly proprietors, and the new civilisation returned the compliment through its trained intellects by giving to war its present destructive efficiency.

To this efficiency, great as the paradox may seem, Peace holds what quiet fields it has, or will have, until most men learn to love peace and hate the arts of war.

As to the Chinese is given the credit for the invention of gunpowder, so they must also be regarded as the first to throw projectiles by its means. But their inventions in these directions may be classed as fireworks, and have no material bearing on the modern art of Ordnance. It is supposed that the word cannon," is derived from the same root as cane, originally signifying a hollow reed; and that these hollow reeds or similar tubes closed at one end were used to fire rockets by powder.

It is also stated that the practice existed among the Chinese as early as 969 A.D. of tying rockets to their arrows to propel them to greater distances, as well as for incendiary purposes.

This basic idea had percolated from China through India to the Moors and Arabs, and in the course of a few centuries had developed into a crude artillery used by the Moors in the siege of Cordova in 1280. The Spaniards, thus learning the use of the cannon, turned the lesson upon their instructors, when under Ferdinand IV. they took Gibraltar from the Moors in 1309. Then the knowledge of artillery soon spread throughout Europe. The French used it at the siege of Puy Guillaume in 1338, and the English had three small guns at Crecy in 1346. These antique guns were made by welding longitudinal bars of iron together and binding them by iron rings shrunk on while hot. Being shaped internally and externally like an apothecary's mortar, they were called mortars or bombards. Some were breech-loaders, having a removable chamber at the breech into which the charge of powder was inserted behind the ball. The balls were stone. These early cannon, bombards, and mortars were mounted on heavy solid wooden frames and moved

with great difficulty from place to place. Then in the fifteenth century they commenced to make wrought-iron cannon, and hollow projectiles, containing a bursting charge of powder to be exploded by a fuse lit before the shell was fired. In the next century cannon were cast.

The Hindoos, when their acquaintance was made by the Europeans, were as far advanced as the latter in cannon and fire-arms. One cannon was found at Bejapoor, in India, cast of bronze, bearing date 1548, and called the "Master of the Field," which weighed 89,600 pounds, and others of similar size of later dates. Great cast bronze guns of about the same weight as the Hindoo guns were also produced at St. Petersburg, Russia, in the sixteenth century.

Many and strange were the names given by Europeans to their cannon in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to denote their size and the weight of the ball they carried: such as the Assick, the Bombard, the Basilisk, the cannon Royal, or Carthoun, the Culverin, Demi-culverin, Falcon, Siren, Serpentine, etc.

The bombards in the fifteenth century were made so large and heavy, especially in France, that they could not be moved without being taken apart.

When the heavy, unwieldy bombards with stone balls were used, artillery was mostly confined to castles, towns, forts, and ships. When used in the field they were dragged about by many yokes of oxen. But in the latter part of the fifteenth century, when France under Louis XI. had learned to cast lighter brass cannon, to mount them on carriages that could be drawn by four or six horses, and which carriages had trunnions in which the cannon were swung so as to be elevated or depressed, and cast-iron projectiles

were used instead of stones, field artillery took its rise, and by its use the maps of the world were changed. Thus with their artillery the French under Charles VIII., the successor of Louis XI., conquered Italy.

In the sixteenth century Europe was busy in adopting these and other changes. Cannon were made of all sizes and calibres, but were not arranged in battle with much precision. Case shot were invented in Germany but not brought into general use. Shells were invented by the Italians and fired from mortars, but their mode of construction was preserved in great secrecy. The early breech-loaders had been discarded, as it was not known how to make the breech gas-tight, and the explosions rendered the guns more dangerous to their users than to the enemy.

In the seventeenth century Holland began to make useful mortar shells and hand grenades. Maurice and Henry Frederick of Nassau, and Gustave Adolphus, made many improvements in the sizes and construction of cannon. In 1674, Coehorn, an officer in the service of the Prince of Orange, invented the celebrated mortar which bears his name, and the use of which has continued to the present time. The Dutch also invented the howitzer, a short gun in which the projectiles could be introduced by hand. About the same time Comminges of France invented mortars which threw projectiles weighing 550 pounds. In this part of that century also great improvements were made under Louis XIV. Limbers, by which the front part of the gun carriage was made separable from the cannon part and provided with the ammunition chest; the prolonge, a cord and hook by which the gun part could be moved around by hand;