The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-07-12
History and Uses Of Gunpowdcr.
invented gunnOWder?

Who invented gunpowder?
No one knows. All agree that its CON-
position and proper ties were understood
in remote antiquity. Authentic history
extends but a short way into the past, and
it is always difficult to draw the line sep
arating the authentic from the fabulous.
Like some other things, gunpowder, as
ages rolled on, may have been invented
forgotten and re-invented. Certainly i'm
some form it was known and used for fire.
works and incendiarv material long be-
fore anyone dreamed of a gun, or Of
using 1t to do more than create terror in,
warfare. And yet it is said that some Of
the ancicnts had means of using it to-
throw destructive missiles among their
enemies-probably species OF rocket or
bomb. Nor does it seem, in its infancy,
to have been applied to industrial pur-
rock, for there is evidence that the people
quarried immense blocks of stone by split
ting them out of the quarrics with ham,
mers and wedges.
Its first uses probably were connected
with the religious ceremonies of the pagan
ancients. An old tradition taught that
those were the most powerful gods who
answered their worshipers by fire. The
priests, therefore, who practiced upon the
credulity OF the people, exercised their in
genuity in inventing ways of producing
spontaneous fire, which they told the peO-.
pie was sent by the gods from Heaven in
answer to their PRAYERS. The accounts OF
old writer's still preserved and dating back
to three hundred years before Christ, de-
scribe "a sulphurO,s and inflammable
substance" Enthusiastically like our gun
powder. There was certain place called
the Oracle of Delphi" once visited by
Alexander the Great, where this kind of
fire was produced by the priests. and it is
said that the Druids, the ancient priests of
Britain, also used something of this sort
in their sacrifices, for they not only pro-
duced sudden fire, but they also initiated
thunder and lightning, to terrify the peo-
pie with their power. This must have been
more than two thousand years ago 1t is
known that the Chinese, on the other side
of the world, had gunpOwdcr about the
same time, but they used it chiefly for
fireworks, which then, as now, formed
the main feature of ali their festivals and
ceremonies. In India it was early used
in war. for writer who lived about A.
d. PA says: When the towns of India
are attacked by their enemies the people
flight by thunder and lightning" 1t Is
said, too, that one of the Roman Empc.
rors, who lived Just after the cruci6xicia
of Christ, chad machines which initiated
thunder and lightning, and at the same
time emitted stones" Then, about A. D.
22O, there was written recipe " for an
ingenious composition to he thrown on an
enemy which very nearly corresponds
| to our gunpowier. During the many hun
dred years that follow, little is recorded
until about the ninth century, when there
appears in an old book, now in Paris
| library, an exact recipe for gunpOwder,
and description of a rocket. 1t is said
that in 1899 the Saraccns, in defending
Jerusalem, "threw abundance of pots of
fire and shot fire darts''-nO doubt some
kind Of bombs and war-rOckets. History
| affords accounts of other wars about this
time, in which gunpowder was undOubt-
cdly used in some form. But in 1916 q
monk, Friar Roger Bacon, made gunpow-
der; and it is asserted he discovered it in.
dependently. knowing nothing of its OK
istence elsewhere. 1t is not unreasona-
BILE to believe this, for in those days pee,
pie kept their inventions to themselves if
they could, and news travelled slowly
Some authors say German named
Schwartz discovered it in 1920, and per-
haps he did, too, and as honestly and in
dependently as did Friar Bacon, or the
East Indians or the Chinese. Others in
sist that it was invented originally in In
dia, and brought by the Saracens from
Africa to the Europeans, who improved
it. At any rate, an English gentleman
who has made translation Of some of
the laws of India, supposed to have been
established /, 500 years before the Chris
tan era, or over $500 years ago, makes
one of them read thus: 1.-THE Magistrate
shall not make war with any deceitful
machine. or with poisoned weapons, or
with cannon and guns, or any kind Of fire.
arms. "-St. Nicholas for July.