The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-05-19

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1t would be a curious study to trace the inn
provements that have been made in the weapons
and the enginery of war, from the earliest ages to
the present time-from the arrow heads of BONE
and the batte-axes of flint to the MIME rife and
ARMSTRONG gun. The Cimbrians and the Celts
who, wandering from the shores of the Thracian
Bosphorus became the first inhabitants of the
British Isles, were in no respect, superior in cond
ton to what own American Indians are de-
scrbed to have been when HENDRICK HUDSON first
landed on the Island of Manahatta, and Captain
JOHN SMITH laid the foundations of the Virginia
Colony on the banks of the Powhattan river But
what a contrast is presented between the ancient
Briton tatooed like South sea Islander, and clad
in the skins of wild beasts and the well fed and
decorousy clothed Engshman, who sips his port
ut the CARLTON Club, or lounges over his turtle at
civic banquets-or between the savage warrior
who protected his person from the assaults of his
enemies by a wicker shield covered with raw hide |
and the stalwart soldierin curass and helmet, who
stands sentry at the Horse Guards? 1t was the in
vention of gunpowder that gradually superseded
the weapons anciently in use, and brought about
then called bOmJards, were of very clumsy con-
struction, being formed of bars of iron bound
together with hoops and shaped wider at the
mouth than at the base. The next invention was
the hand cannon which came into use about the
middle of the fifteenth century. 1t was nothing
more than Il simple tube fixed on straight stock
of wood three feet in length, and usually carried
by two men and fired from crest fixed in the
ground. The success of the latter piece suggested
the hand gun which was originally long tube of
brass, with printing pan at its base and with a
horizontal cover to protect the printing from being
blown away by the wind. 1t was of course fred
by a slow match The musquet, Spanish inven-
ton, was first used at the battle of Pava in 1925
and was manifest improvement upon the portable
firearms that in previously, but it
was so long and heavy that each musqueteer, as
in the of hand cannon, was compelled TO
carry with him stat with a fork at the top
upon which to rest the barrel of the musquet
while firing at the enemy. The slow match
had, however, been superseded by the match
lock, and the latter, few years subsequent
ly, was supplanted by the wheel lock, which
produced sparks of fire by revolving in contact
with piece of iron pyrites. The Dutch improved
upon this contrivance by inventing the snaphaunce
which very closely resembled the locks of the flint
guns, that have not yet wholly gone out of use.
Towards the close of the fifteenth century, the
French introduced the carabine or carbine, and
armed body of light cavalry with this weapon.
Nearly a century later, the fusil, which though of
the same length and calibre as the musquet, was
lighter to handle and more skillfully made, came
intn In Tho tlo +o1
had been invented in Italy, and was handled
with so much effect by the German cavalry
as to occasion in France, and subsequently in
England, the disuse of lances. To protect their
musqueteers against charge of cavalry or pikemen,
the French in 1911 introduced the bayonet, which
was first formed with plain handle to fit in the
muzzle of the gun; but the inconvenience which
resulted from thus depriving the musqueteer of the
ability to fire off his weapon soon led to the sub
stitutiOn of ring, whereby the bayonet at
tached to the musket very much in the same
manner as at the present day. With respect to
cannon a writer in the April number of the Eain-
burg ReUiec, while referring to the astonishing
progress which has been made in the manufacture
of all descriptions Of firearms used for warlike
purposes during the last few years, remarks upon
the singularity of the fact that scarcely any
change has been effected in artillery within
abe past two centures-''the form of the
"gun, the mode of supporting it on trunnions
1.-THE position of the touch-hole the mode of firing
Kit with a match-all remain as they were Mus
'quets, too" he states, ''have been as little i'm
'proved as the larger description of firearms
'those used at Salamanca and Waterloo being
identical, in all essential respects, with those
'that the soldiers under MARLBOROUGH fought
with at Blenheim and Families" He expresses
the opinion that our own success in the war of In
dependence was mainly owing to the skill with
which our troops handled the rifle and
he cites the last Mexican war as an il
lustration of the superiority of the rife
over every other weapon. The first improve
ment In firearms which has been made of late
years, is attributed to the French who finding in
their earlier campaigns in Algeria ''that the Arabs
EARNED with the long barrelled MATCHBOX could
'pick off the French officers at distance where
'the musquet cond not reach them, armed the
"Chasseurs d Intrigue, and afterwards the CAas-
'Seurs de plncennes, with rifles, and the complete
"subjugation of Algeria was the speedy result of
1.-THE change" All this and much more is intro
dnctory to the MIME rife and the ARMSTRONG
gun, and a series of experiments with the latter
are quoted to show the extraordinary distance and
accuracy with which it can throw the singularly |
shaped missile which the inventor uses in the place
of the old spherical ball. 1t is known, also. that
in France and Germany great improvements have
recently been made in all descriptions of fire, arms
and the problem which is now to be solved is to |
estimate how far they will tend to work revolution |
in the science OF war as at present understood |
That the introduction of these new and terribly |
destructive engines of war; if they prove as efec-
tive in actual use as they appear to have been ex-
perimentally, will bring about a radical change,
not only in the mode of fighting battles on land
but also in naval warfare, is very generally con-
coded. 1t is moreover contended by the writer
from whose article we have been quoting, that the
probable result of these Improvements in firearms
will be to render wars more bloody and more
expensive, and that nations will consequently
be less eager TO engage in them, and that wars |
when they are thus entered upon, will be shorter
in duration than they formerly were. The more |
effective the weapons that are used the briefer and
more desperate will be the struggle. There is no
courage of quality so heroic as to stand long be-
fore certain destruction; soldier who went into |
battle with the consciousness that it required |
thousand musket shots to kill one man, as was the
case in the Crimean war, might well stand his
ground with hopeful confidence; but with the
MIME rife, and the ARMSTRONG gun, the doctrine of
chances fails almost entirely aud when those death
dealing weapons used, one of the belligerents,
as in charge of bayonets, must speedily be put to
rout.
From our Reporter, who accompanied the City
Councilmen in their Tour of Inspection over the