Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1921-04-03
Borrowdale and Otcro
COLLECTIONS.

The great attraction at the Mu-
scum at present Is to be found IN
the Parajito and DeVargas rooms
of the Palace of the Governors. In
the former, the Otero collection OF
pottery and baskets has been in
stalled so that some idea may be
gained of the munificent gift to
the state by Mrs. Miguel A. Otero,
wife of the former governor. The
baskets are superb specimens,
mostly of Mescalero and Jtcarllla
Apache weave, while the pottery
covers the range of Tewa, Keresan,
Zuni, and Hopi pueblos, most OF
the specimens being quite old and
the best Of their type.
The Barrowdale collection OF
weapons, including swords, pistols
and guns, has been arranged by
Curator Wesley Bradfield so as to
permit examination in detail OF the
remarkable exhibit. It has been
catalogued descriptively by Fayette
s. Curtis of the Los Alamos Ranch
school, who has made special
study of weapons. There are some
two hundred numbers In the cata-
logue, each one telling a bit of his
tory. Take No. 3l49. for instance:
"a cavalry sabre of the Empire
of Napoleon l. Made at the fam
Gus arsenal at Klingenthal, it was
issued from the depot at Versailles.
Dated 1913, it may wei have seen
service at the battles of Leipzig
and Waterloo. BY its pattern it
may probably have been made for
Napoleon's German or Polish aux
Hilary cavalry, moro probably Ger
man. Its general construction IN
dicates that it was made for men
of medium size and weight, who
were used to slashing with sword
rather than using a point"
Side by side with it is an "old
Spanish sword blade and pommel
from the battlefield of Pinos Altos,
near Silver City, N. M. When new
the blade unquestionably had a
cross-guard of light metal which
has since disappeared. Both edges
were sharp and it could be used
for both cutting and thrusting.
On one side of the blade Is en-
graved Iihannes,' and on the other
ID Glaroria.'
either bad knowledge of Latin on
the part of the sword cutler, a
theory which the other inscription
would bear out, or that the maker
was of Dutch or Flemish origin,
the latter of which is a very strong
possibility, as Spain had held the
Netherlands for a number of years
at the time when America was dis
covered, and Spanish soldiers were
by no means slow to take advan-
tage of the opportunity to buy the
wares of the Flemish armorers, es-
pecially the swords and to learn
the extraordinary methods of the
tackled opponents and defended
Flemish masters of fence who at
themselves according to the rules
of geometry"
Then there are Cuban machetes,
Filipino bolos. old hunting dag
gers of European make, Chinese
dagger, Japanese short sword and
types of similar weapons used in
the Confederate, Federal and Eu-
ropean armies.
Among the pistols are a double
action English "pepperbox" pistol,
a double barreled derringer, Bel
gian, German, French and Ameri-
can makes of many types well il
Illustrating the development of that
arm up to the present.
1t is among the weapons fired
from the shoulder" that some of
the most interesting specimens are
catalogued. An English Grown
and Tower Queens Arm" being n
type of the old Snap Haunce,'
which is derived from the Dutch
term for "Chicken Thief" There
are carbines of 60 years ago and
guns from the Revolutionary war.
A Hessian rifle used by the mer-
cenaries more than $50 years ago
and Chinese matchbox. the earli-
est type of fire arm, stand near
each other, The Chinese match
lock was loaded from the muz5le
with powder and ball, pan on
the righthand side of the piece
was primed with fine powder and
covered by the swinging cover
which is hinged to 1t. The gun
was tilted on its left side and
tapped smartly to get the powder
from the pan into the barrel. The
'matchlock was rather mere eftee-