The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-16
STRANGE WEAPONS
 USED IN FIGHTING Grotesque Military Engines of
 the Middle Ages SOME MONSTER CANYONS Machine to Break the Enemy's Ranks. Dragon for Attacking Towns.
 Had Curious Names-odd
 Modern Inventions.
SOME MONSTER CANYONS

The ingenuity of man has been taxed to the utmost to contrive new and more
 deadly means of killing and -wounding his fellow men, and science has now brought l our modern weapons to such perfection that it seems almost impossible to imagine any advance in their effectiveness. If we expect the cold steel-which still has Its | uses, if we are to judge by the recent war in the east-there are but three classes Of offensive weapons: The gun and it's pro- l iectiles, the rifle and the mine or torpedo In the process of their evolution from the
 stone and club of our prehistoric ances-
 tors an enormous number of contrvances
 have been invented by the fertile brains
 of soldiers, mechanics and scientists.
 Some of these, such as the hand
 gonne." Edward HIS "crakeys of war
 the cannon he took against the Scots and the engineer Giannibellfs "devil ships
 of Antwerp" may. be regarded, writes Lieut.-Col C. Field in the Scientific Amer ican, as being the direct ancestors of the rifle, gun and torpedo of today. But there
 have been hosts of others, which have
 either become entirely obsolete after a very short reign, have never caught oh' or. in very many cases, have never had any actual existence outside the plans and ideas of their sanguine inventors.
 Many of these warlike appliances, espe- cially those belonging to the middle ages, are of the most grotesque description. As at no distant date the making of hideous grimaces to strike terror into the heart of an enemy was cultivated as branch of the military art by the troops or the Celestial empire, so in mediaeval times the grotesque seems to have been considered
 at least as much desideratum as the practical by the inventors or oHenslve ana defensive weapons So we have such eX- traordinary contrivances as machine to break the ranks of an enemy and other dragonlike edifices.
 How the former, which appears to be a kind of mediaeval motor car, got over the ground and how 1t brought Its formid- able array of spikes to bear upon those
 who had the hardihood to oppose Its prog ress must be left to the imagination. The other machine is merely a grotesque edi- ton of the movable towers that played such an important part in the sieges of
 ancient and mediaeval cities.
 Named Warlike Machines.
 Ancient warriors had a great penchant for naming their various warlike engines and machines after animals, real or imaG- mary. Thus we have the Roman mus culus," or little mouse' a machine for undermining the walls of a besleged city; the battering ram, the SOW, the scorpion l for discharging big arrows from power 1 full bow, the onager for huring stones. | The onager, according to tradition, was an animal that had a pleasant trick Of
 kicking stones with great violence at its pursuers. Again, the Roman warships were equipped with spiked gangway
 known as a "corvus, or "crow." which
 on being let fall upon an enemy's ship
 grappled her and formed bridge dor l boarders.
 1 Medieval soldiers made frequent use
 of the wolf in the defence of castles | and towns. This was a species of huge 1 harrow, made of balks of timber with
 wooden spikes at the intersections, which
 set up outside the walls could be thrown
 down and forward to crush the besiegers l as they crowded to the assault When l cannon were invented their names became 1 legion. A ship or a train of artillery con-
 tained a perfect geological garden of birds. beasts and fabulous animals. There were
 baslisks, drakes, dragons yolant falcons,
 serpents and pelicans not to mention double dogs and partridge mortars.
 We have of late years seen a good deal | in the newspapers about the training of
 dogs for military purposes. such as scout 1 ing, giving notice of the approach of an
 enemy and searching for the wounded.