involved in the Construction of Artillery. 339 



Note referred to m Page 314. 



^^ Early Use of Charcoal Fuel. — There are five different words in the Hebrew Bible which are all rendered "coal" 

 in the Authorized Version. Of these, I'inW (schehhor), which is foxind in Lamentations, iv. 8, does not come under con- 

 sideration here, the exact meaning of the term being ' blackness,' as it is correctly translated in the margin. With regard 

 to the remaining four, viz. — ona (pehham), rhm (gahheletli). nSYT (ritzpah) nyn, and n^;! (reschiph), we cannot gather 

 any clear idea from their derivation, as to the nature of the substance meant. 



" The first term, cnSi is used to signify both carbo and pruna, i.e. coal or fuel, either not ignited or in a state of combus- 

 tion ; but it seems more properly to denote IhQ former; the root signifies, * to be black.' In Proverbs, xxvi. 21, we meet 

 the following passage : — • As coals (opiSi carbo) are to burning coals (D^Sn^T gehhahm, prttna), and wood to fire,' &c. From 



TV • T : 



this passage, by itself, we might possibly infer that the qpb, ' coal,' as distinguished from the D«yy (etsim 'wood,') imphed some- 

 thing of a mineral nature, especially if we couple the idea of ' blackness* with that of fresh, not yet ignited fueL The term 

 nSnj (gahheleth) is that most commonly adopted to signify ' burning or lighted coal ;' and it certainly, in the majority of 

 instances, is used in reference to wood: e.g. — Isaiah, xliv. 19 : — ' I have baked bread on the coals thereof,' i.e. on the coals 

 of the same wood out of which the idol was made. And again. Psalm cxx. 4, coals of juniper, c*i;ni ''■ni (gahliale retha- 

 mim), i.e. oi juniper wood, wliich, like the tamarisk among the Arabs, was supposed to make the hottest and most lasting 

 fire. The 'coals of tire from the altar,' Levit. xvi. 12, seem to mean lighted billets of wood. 



"The term nSVi (ritzpah) is found only, I believe, in Isaiah, vi. (5 ; and there our English version renders it 'a live coal;' 

 T : • 

 but the lexicographers say, that it rather means 'a Aea^e(/5(one,' the derivative pointing out a stone such as was used in forming 



tesselated pavement. A word of kindred form and origin is met in 1 Kings, xix. 6 : — ' Elijah looked, and behold a cake bakeu 



on the coals,' d'BVI niV (uggath retzaphim), literally, a cake (baken) on stones, heated stones. As for the last word, h^'n 



(reschaph), translated ' coals,' in Deut. xxxii. 24 (Marg.), Song of Solomon, viii. 6, and Habak. iii. 5, it rather means the 



heat and flame of fire, than the material producing it." 



To my learned friend, the Rev. William Carroll, A.M., Vicar of Glasnevin, coimty of Dublin, I owe the above. 



I have abstained from any similar attempt to ascertain the earliest notices of nitre, as to which a great deal of learned, 

 but, to our subject, not very pertinent matter, may be foimd in Beckmann, " Hist. Invent.," because, however important it 

 would be to the history of gunpowder in Europe to ascertam whence its early supplies of nitre came, the question of its 

 earliest written notices in Europe are unimportant; and in Asia it existed as a ^videly diffused natural product always ; it 

 would, therefore, be impossible to show a time when it was not known iu this, the seat of the first known use of gunpowder. 

 — R. M. 



Note B.— (Sect. 1.) 



Shell guns, almost limited at first by their chief proposers to the subordinate place of 

 throwing hollow shot or shells, at moderate velocities and low elevations, against earth- 

 works, but principally against shipping, where the shattering and splintering effect of such 

 projectiles is legitimately applied, have had, within the last ten years, a preponderance in 

 number and application given to them, especially on board ship, the evils of which Sir 

 Howard Douglas has fully exposed in his *' Treatise on Naval Gunnery." 



In place of whole tiers of hollow shot guns, of large caliber, of proportions unsafe for, or 

 even incapable of bearing, the discharge of solid shot, with full service charges, the improve- 



