Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-01-02
FROM CATAPUlT TO 12-lNcH GUN.
The Power of the Ancient Long and
Cross Bow in Battle.


curious topic, lately elucidated in
the proceedings of the Royal Institu-
ton of Great Britain by Sir Ralph
Payne Gallwey. The experiments he
made in the construction and use Of
various kinds of bows and Roman and
mediaeval machines for throwing
heavy weights are original and most
curious. Leaving aside such missiles
as furor ministrat, the mere throwing
of stones by hand, as at Troy. Culloden
and Inkerman, Sir Ralph does not
think that the range Of the heavy mis-
sile spear, commonly used in Himer,
can have exceeded sixty yards.
| In practice one supposes that a war
rior carrying only two spears would
seldom risk losing them by throws
much over 20 yards. 1t was easy
for an enemy to see and dodge a spear
thrown from longer distance. and
these missiles, being ponderous, were
relatively bulky and easily watched.
No throwing stick, adding power and
pace, as among the Australians, was
in use in Homer's time, but a leathern
loop later took up in Greek and Roman
war, the task of the throwing stick.
However, the loop being attached to
the shaft, served the enemy who es-
capped the shot, and enabled him to re-
turn the spear, perhaps with better
aim. Therefore a long thong, which
the warrior retained in his hand, was
substituted for the loop,
In the West Riding willow wand
and a short cord was used for throw
| ing in sportive competitions. A throw
of wanda yard in length and nc
thicker than a pencil-to a distance Of
$50 yards Is recorded, and Is amazing.
The powers Of the thong are far be-
yond those of the throwing stick. The
method of using the thong Is not easy
| to describe, or even, when described,
to understand. The throwing stick
practically adds an extra long joint
to the arm of the thrower, and has
been developed In Australia, New
Zealand, Central America and the
Arctic north, while an enigmatic i'm
plement of palaeolithic man in south
ern France Is recognized as throwing
stick by some students.
The sling, Sir Ralph thinks, was
never a weapon of precision, despite
what the Bible says of the Benjamite
singers at a hairs breath" Where
he learned that Achaean singers could
not hit any individual feature of the
enemy's face 1 know not. We hear
very little about the Locrian singers
from Homer; they were held of little
account. Davids famous shot at the
Philistine giant needed "a heaven-sent
moment" Sir Ralph himself singing
at rocks in tree, rarely went near the
tree, and was dangerous to people
around and behind him, though he is a
good shot with any other projectile.
The making of good boomerangs is
practically confined to the Australians,
who are masters in the delicate art of
imparting carefully calculated twists
to the hard wood. The war boomerang
is dangerous at eighty yards, but not
nearly so powerful, accurate and
deadly as the steel QUOT of the Sikhs,
sharp as a razor on the cutting edge.
Sir Ralph has thrown the quot, with
a very low trajectory, to a distance
of 200 yards.
The god Vishnu, having four hands,
was most fatal opponent with the
quot, the most deadly and terrible
projectile the unaided human arm was
capable of welding" AS to bows and
arrows, several races have never evolv-
ed and never borrowed them. Our fa-
nous English longbow is commonly
said to have been adapted from Welsh
usage by Edward l., who thus broke
up and defeated the squares, or
"schiltrons," of Wallace's spearmen at
Falkirk. But even then, on the north
ernside, the archers of Ettrick forest
were famous. 1t is certain that in
prehistoric Greece the bow, though ap-
parently more powerful by far than our
English longbow, fell early into some
disrepute, and was mainly superseded
by the heavy missile spear. The Eng
lish longbow was mere staff Of for
eign yew, shaped at home 1t could not
be used on horseback, and If kept
strung for some hours lost much of
it's power.
The war range for a powerful man
was about $50 yards, though Sir John
Smyth gives it a range of a quarter
|arrow-but it seems that 10 yards
was the really practicable limit in
battle. At $50 yards Sir Ralph thinks
that the bow equaied. if it did not ex-
Gel, the old Brown Bess musket used
up TO 1910. A hundred Of the bowmen
of Crecy might have beaten a hundred
musketeers Of Waterloo, shooting six
arrows for each bullet Of the musket
The bow was used by some of the royal
forces in our civil war; though Dugald
Dalgetty was amazed, at the same pc
riod. by the bows of the Children of
the Mist. General Marriott was wound
ed by Tartar's arrow at Leipsic-of
that we have official record.
Despite our brag of the yew bow,
it was not nearly so powerful as the
short, prehistoric, Oriental, composite
bow-small, light and capable of being
used by mounted men. This bow is
the familiar attribute of Cupid in art,
ancient and modern. 1t is composite,
having a basis of thin lath of wood,
while strength is given by layers of
horn and sinew, glued together and
lacquered over. The art of making
such bows appears to be lost, even in
Persia and Turkey. The great age of
the invention is proved by Homer's
accounts of the goats horns used in
making the bow of Pandarus, where
with he loosed the arrow dolorus," as
Mallory would have said, that broke
the truce and sealed the doom of Troy.
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