involved in the Construction of Artillery. 



329 



at Berlin an 80-pouncler, at Malaga another, at Bremen two 60-pounderg, at Rome in St. 

 Angelo a 70-pounder, — all date from this century, and show how difFascd and uniform, all 

 over northern and central Europe, the size and form of artillery had become. 



In England, the earliest bronze guns are said to have been cast by one John Owen, in 

 1535, and that he was the first to produce a gun in cast-iron, about the year 1547. 



I cannot find anything certain, however, as to the earliest production of cast-iron guns. 

 Blast furnaces (" haute fourneanx") for smelting, replaced the old Catalan methods, about 

 the commencement of the fifteenth century ; were known in the Hartz, in Westphalia, in 

 Flanders, and seem to have come to us thence, and were not uncommon about the middle 

 of the century. Their working must have become well known by experience, and the con- 

 ditions of yield, or quality of metal, pretty certain, before it were possible to produce cast- 

 iron guns of large size. 



I know not what may be the earliest ascertainable cast-iron artillery in existence, or 

 what records there may be of first essays. There is in the Repository atWoolwich an 18-inch 

 Pierriere, captured at Corfu, with the date 1(584 upon it, — an early example of cast-iron. 

 Some old cast-iron 32-pounder3, cast in Charles II.'s time, 1660-1684, are mentioned by 

 Miiller (" Introduc. ArtilL," p. 22) as existing in his time. I believe there is also at Wool- 

 wich an old cast-iron gun, of late in Elizabeth's reign. The vast extensions in number and 

 power of guns, which the use of cast-iron has produced, however, seems mainly due to 

 England, Scotland, and Sweden, and to belong to a comparatively very recent date. 



In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the multiplicity of sizes and forms of "ims 

 was extraordinary. 



In England they might be reduced to the following classification and average sizes, 

 dimensions, and weights. 



The smaller sizes were called Minion, Falcon, Falconet, Rabinot, and Base, the last of 

 which only carried a 5-ounce ball of lead. 



Collado states, that at the siege of Milan, by the Spaniard?, 200 different sorts of am- 

 munition were required for the artillery. Christobal Lachuga, at the beginning of the 

 seventeenth century, endeavoured to reduce the Spanish artillery to six different calibers 

 only — a reform which has been recently carried to its limits, with admitted advantar'e, 

 by the Emperor Napoleon, reducing the whole French field-train to one caliber of 12- 

 pounders. 



