WITH NOTES. 421 



\_An ebbing and flowing Castle-clock.~\ John Bate, in 

 his &quot; Mysteries of Nature and Art,&quot; 1635, at p. 45, 

 describes u A water-clock, or a glasse showing the 

 hour of the day,&quot; by three different arrangements. 



This article is further noticed in commenting on No. 57. 



2 4 . 



How to increafe the ftrength of 

 a Spring to fuch an height, 5 as to 

 fhoot BumbaiTes and Bullets of an 

 hundred pound weight a Steeple- 

 height, and a quarter of a mile off 

 and more, Stone-bow-wife, admirable 

 for Fire-works and aftonishing of 

 befieged Cities, when without warn 

 ing given by noife they find thern- 

 felves fo forcibly and dangeroufly 

 furprifed. 



5 degree for height. P. 



[A Strength-increasing Spring. ] The technical term 

 BUMBASSES, or probably bombasses, here used, has 

 escaped the attention of all compilers of Archaic 

 Dictionaries. By the context we may presume it was 

 applied to the large stones usually fired from bombards, 

 and differing only from bullets in these last being made 

 of lead or iron. 



Ancient cannon appear to have consisted of two 

 kinds ; a large one for discharging stones, called a 

 Bombard, and a lesser one for darts. In 1388, a stone 

 bullet, weighing 195 pounds, is related, according to 

 Meyrick, to have been discharged from a Bombard, 

 called the Trevisan. Such stone missiles may have 

 been of the kind called by the Marquis &quot;bumbasses,&quot; 

 and would be perhaps more properly named bombasses. 



