572 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 196 2 



available, it was standard procedure for the archer who was striving 

 for highest score to shoot his matched arrows repeatedly with a given 

 bow, to determine their dispersion pattern, and to fix in his mind the 

 deviation of each arrow, identified by number, from the intended 

 point of impact at various target distances. He also needed to know 

 the effects of temperature and humidity on the performance of his 

 tackle, and make due allowances for them. With these precautions, 

 experts could make fair scores. 



The story of how bows and arrows became the objects of study by 

 scientists and engineers, and how the transformation in design from 

 the old to the new came about, begins in the 1920's. 



Among those who became the pioneers in studies looking toward 

 improvement, C. N. Hickman is one of the leaders. His training in 

 physics to the doctorate was at Clark University, where he worked 

 with Eobert H. Goddard, known as the father of modern rocketry. 

 Soon after the first World War, Hiclanan was employed at the 

 National Bureau of Standards and soon thereafter transferred to the 

 Washington Navy Yard as research engineer. He seems to have inher- 

 ited his interest in archery. His grandfather learned it from the 

 Indians, and his father was one of the relatively small number of 

 archers in the United States during the last decade of the 19th and 

 the early decades of the 20th centuries. Throughout his career Hick- 

 man has been a confirmed experimentalist in mechanics, with specific 

 and practical objectives, and with exceptional ingenuity in devising 

 and constructing apparatus and systems needed for specialized meas- 

 urements and mechanical performance. 



His exploration of the mechanics of the bow included the design and 

 construction of a shooting machine with which hand shooting could 

 be more closely simulated than in earlier machines of this kind. In it 

 he employed a nonjarring pneumatic release, adapted from the pneu- 

 matic bellows used in a player piano. The device makes possible the 

 reduction to minimum of the inevitable small variations in the process 

 of shooting by hand. The machine and his modified form of the 

 Aberdeen Chronograph, on the development of which I was engaged 

 at Aberdeen Proving Ground and in Philadelphia during World 

 War I, made it feasible to measure accurately the short time inter- 

 vals involved in determining velocities and accelerations of arrows 

 being discharged from bows. Data could thus be obtained for better 

 understanding of the "interior ballistics" of the bow and arrow com- 

 bination, and of the velocities and retardations involved in the "ex- 

 terior ballistics" of the missile. 



The beginning of my interest in these matters in the summer of 1929 

 came about through the fact that part of the family's vacation pas- 

 time was provided by a beginner's archery set and a homemade target. 



