304 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



in the form of a pair of stays, about 1500. 

 Armor ceased to reach below the knees in the 

 time of Charles I., 1625. 



Artillery. The first piece was a small 

 one, contrived by Schwartz, a German cordel- 

 ier, soon after the invention of gunpowder in 

 1330. Artillery was used, it is said, by the 

 Moors at Algeciras in Spain, in the siege of 

 1341 ; it was used, according to historians, at 

 the battle of Cressy, in 1346, when Edward III. 

 had four pieces of cannon, which gained him 

 the battle. Artillery was used at the siege of 

 Calais, 1847. The Venetians first employed 

 artillery against the Genoese at sea, 1377. 

 Cast in England, together with mortars for 

 bombshells, by Flemish artists in Sussex, 1543. 

 Made of brass, 1635. From this time forward 

 the improvement in field artillery has been 

 rapid and important. 



Astronomy. The earliest accounts we 

 have of this science are those of Babylon, 

 about 2234 B. C. The study of astronomy was 

 much advanced in Chaldea under Nabonas- 

 sur ; it was known to the Chinese about 1100 

 3. C. ; some say many centuries before. Lu- 

 nar eclipses were observed at Babylon with ex- 

 ceeding accuracy, 720 B. C. Spherical form 

 of the earth, and the true cause of lunar 

 eclipses, taught by Thales, 640 B. C. Further 

 discoveries by Pythagoras, who taught the doc- 

 trine of celestial motions, and believed in the 

 plurality of habitable worlds, 500 B. C. Hip- 

 parchus began his observations at Rhodes, 167 



B. C., began his new Cycle of the moon in 143, 

 and made great advances in the science, 140 B. 



C. The procession of the equinoxes confirmed, 

 and the places and distances of the planets dis- 

 covered, by Ptolemy, A. D. 130. After the 

 elapse of nearly seven centuries, during which 

 time astronomy was neglected, it was resumed 

 by the Arabs about 800 ; and was afterwards 

 brought into Europe by the Moors of Barbary 

 and Spain, but not sooner than 1201, when 

 they also introduced geography. True laws 

 of the planetary motions discovered by Kepler 

 1619 ; the discoveries of Galileo were made 

 about 1631. Newton's Principia published 

 and the system as now taught incontroverti- 

 bly established, A. D. 1687 ; Mecanique Celeste, 

 published by La Place, 1796. 



Ax- Wedge. These instruments, with the 

 lever, and various others of a coarse construc- 

 tion and still in common use, are said to have 

 been invented by Dsedalus, an artificer of 

 Athens, to whom also is ascribed the invention 

 of masts and sails for ships, 1240 B. C. Many 

 tools are represented on the Egyptian monu- 

 ments. 



Beer, Origin of. The Germans, Gauls, 

 and Bretons manufactured beer from barley 



and wheat as far back as there are any written 

 records regarding them. Tacitus tells us that 

 beer was a common beverage of the Germans 

 when he wrote, in the first century. We learn 

 from Pliny that " The people of Spain, in par- 

 ticular, brew this liquor so well that it will 

 keep a long time." He describes it as made 

 from corn and water. The earliest of Greek 

 writers speak of wine made from barley, ana 

 of the art of making it as derived from the 

 Egyptians. It is believed that Archilochu>. tip- 

 Parian poet, who lived about 700 B. C., re- 

 ferred to beer drinking when he depicted the 

 follies and vicious indulgences of his time. In 

 the- ancient writings of China reference is 

 made to a fermented drink called " sam-shoo." 

 made from rice. When it was first invented 

 is unknown, but it was probably long before 

 the Christian Era. 



Blood, Circulation of. The true the- 

 ory regarding the circulation of blood was 

 discovered by the celebrated English physiolo- 

 gist, William Harvey, about 1616. He re- 

 ceived his diploma as Doctor of Medicine from 

 the University of Padua in 1602, and in 1615 

 was made Lecturer at the College of Physi- 

 cians in London, an appointment which he 

 held for forty years. It is generally supposed 

 that he expounded his views regarding blood 

 circulation in his first course of lectures. He 

 died at London June 3, 1657. 



Bonnet. The English bonnet, which was 

 superseded in the early part of the sixteenth 

 century by the hat, was made of cloth, silk, or 

 velvet, less or more ornamented, according to 

 the taste or means of the wearer. In Scotland, 

 however, bonnets were universally worn for a 

 century or two later, and they still are, to a 

 certain extent, a national characteristic. The 

 bonnet worn by the Lowland Scottish peasan- 

 try was of a broad, round, and flat shape, over- 

 shadowing the face and neck, and of a dark- 

 blue color, excepting a red tuft like a cherry 

 on the top. Tt was made of thick milled 

 woolen, and with reasonable care would last a 

 man his whole life. From having been worn, 

 till comparatively late times, by small rural 

 proprietors such as owners of a cottage and 

 an acre or two of land it gave to these local 

 notabilities the distinctive appellation of Bonnet 

 Lairds. The bonnets worn by the Highland- 

 ers were made of the same fabric, but rise to a 

 point in front and are without any rim. From 

 time immemorial these various kinds of Scots 

 bonnets have been manufactured at Stewarton, 

 a small town in Ayrshire. Formerly the Stew- 

 arton bonnet makers formed a corporation, 

 which, like other old guilds, was governed by 

 regulations conceived in a narrow and often 

 amusingly absurd spirit \ one of the rules of 



