The Washington herald., 1907-10-26

development Of firearms, captains Of
peace perfecting instruments Of warI II
is said that a missionary 10 China in
the tenth century saw the people use
an explosive powder in their religious
| ceremonies 10 appease one Of their gods,
who always required an ear-splitting din.
Being of an investigating turn of mind.
the missionary placed some of this mix
ture on large stone, piled smaller ones
on il and set il of, to see the small
stones hurled into space and, incidentally,
| discover the prOpelling powers of powder.
BerthOld Schwartz. a monk, OF Friburg
after studying the theories Of Roger Ba-
con, also made satisfactory experiments
with gUnp0wder, and IN the sixteenth
| century a German monk adapted flint and
steel % uses in a gun. A Scotch clergy
man found that a illuminate could be
| used to ignite powder In the flash pan,
the flint and steel were dispensed with.
and the percussion cap was a develop
ment of his idea.
The evolution Of firearms is correlated
with the growth Of nations. There is a
tradition that Alexander the Great was
stopped on his great march of conquest
in the East by means OF missiles hurled
by fire from city walls. The Jews of
Bible days used balista and catapults for
hurting javelins and stones at the enemy
Mahomet is said to have known the use
of gu9pOwder and the Arabs used IL IN
6o9 English soldiers used firearms at the
siege Of dEu. and Chaucer alludes TO
them In 1873. In Pepy's Diary there are
two references to repeating muSkets. and
as early as 1851 the King of Denmark
had his bodyguard armed with Tepeaters.
IN the days Of John Smith and Miles
Standish the soldier carried a heavy
blunderbUss with a lighted fuse 10 set
it of. and often heavy fork to rest il
on. The fintlock and wheel lock fol-
lowed, then came guns with percussion
caps, all muzzleloaders. In 1898 an
Englishman perfected a revolver that was
| turned by hand, and this was later i'm
proved on by Colt. who made the revolu-
ton automatic
The government has a collection Of
cannon and firearms of all periods of
American history that are so many chap
ters OF military progress. A brass can
non at the navy-yard museum taken by
Cortez 10 Mexico and captured by the
oAlAINA oAsANNc Ntti iAtE tsit 4iNAtGdA Wat
shows that breech-loading was not un-
known in the sixteenth century. There
are guns Of French and Spanish make
captured by Decatur from AlCiers and
TripOh, English guns from the RevoIu-
ton and war Of 1872. and other Spanish
guns from the Spanish-American war
The most famous gun IN this country is
| Long Tom a forty-two pound cast
| iron gun made by France for her man
of-war, NOche, In 1855 This gun was
captured b. the British when NUcha went
TO shell the coast Of Ireland, and was
sold TO the United States Later II was
sold 70 Haiti and was used by that island
against France. Soon it came back TO
America, and mounted on a man-of-war
helped hold a British feet at bay on the
Azores IN 1874 until jackson had won the
| battle of New Orleans Long Tom went
down with the vessel il was on. but was
later rescued by Portugal and sent as a
present 10 the United States government.
10 be placed in the Washington navy
yard for the rest Of its days.
To-mOrrOw-The Presidents Birth
day.