Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-09-13

continually experimental with the saber
and the dueling sword through the con-
turtles.
The museum has n number of ancient
Japanese swords. weapons with unre liabfe
handles. but razor-sharp edges capable
of infiicting deadly wounds. There Is
the Malay kris. with its undulat'ng edges
and sharpened point. From these clumsy
weapons one turned TO the sword which
Spanish artillerymen once carried. This
is a slender straight blade about forty
inches long. The hit increases an ap-
pearance of del:cacy which is the first i'm
preston one has on viewing the weapon.
Where the blade extends from the hit
the sword is square. 1t Is rectangular
for a distance of perhaps one foot be'ow
the hilt Then the whole blade. by some
curious process. Is turned so there Is
well defined freak in the contour. After
this break the sword continues TO us
sharp point in an ever diminishing square
1t is a four-edged sword that looks as IL
II had been wrenched. Evidently II was
the theory of the maker that the weapon,
when thrust into an opponent. would IN
fIict a more serious wound because OF its
irregular shape. Later. military experts
have almost without exception, deciareo
that a sword in the hands of an artillery
man Is q superiority. II he is Drought
into hand-to-hand conflict. revolver rs
much more deadly.
The oldest types of sabers were ire
mendously heavy, cumbersome things
There is a German dueilng sword OF the
type used at Heidelberg, with an elabo-
rately contrived handle. And there are
early types of cavalry sabers, utterly use
less save when IN the hands of an I'M
usually powerful man.
There are also types of daggers. weap-
ons which were once thought an essen
tial part of military armament There Is
the oriental scimitar and the court sword
of the sixteenth century dandy. and
there are the heavy claymores OF Scot
land.
Reyerting once more to the gun. one
finds much to interest N TWO types which
are prominently displayed-the gatlins
and the wire-wound gun. These two
weapons represent mans effort at
achievement along two divergent Lines
one to fire rapidly and repeatedly from
a single gun. the other to increase the
resistance of the gun to the terri fic ex-
pansion caused by a gunpowder explosion.
A century ago iron was regarded az
less effective in cannonmaking than
bronze because of It's brittleness. The lit
tie wire-wound gun, a model scarcely
more than a foot long. WAS the parent OF
the modern thirteen-inch giant that
stands the brunt of siege on land and at
tack on sea.
The gatling gun. experts say. was the
first really successful repeating cannon
1t had many predecessors Not far away
from the gatling is on exhibit sort OF
glorified rifle, with a mouth-organ at
tachment at its breech. which moves
across as each shot is fred. All o. these
guns were wasteful. inaccurate and more
or less dangerous. The gait ne. brass
cannon with small parforations in the
muzzle. resembles a pepper cruet more
than anything else.
The father of the modern revolver UNI
doubtedly is the pepper box, OF which
a number are on exhibition. Nobody VINO
has ever read Mark Twain can forget the
..pepper box" 1t is a short weapon hav-
ing eight and even ten. separate barrels.
each loaded from the muZz'e. The theory
of the pepper box was that the bar
rels would turn as the trigger was hred.
Mark Twain indicated that frequently
they all went off together, which must
have made quite an elaborate pyrotechnic
disr'ay.
There is fascination for the sitor to
the gallery of weapons" Walking be-
tween the high cases he sees man slow
". painfully devising something new.
something more effective with which to
slay. From the musket to the modern
MAGAZINE rifle is a marvellous leap. One
wonders what the type of gun OF the next
century will be.