26 DEVELOPMENT or ARMS. 
Like so many other notable inventions, the origin of gun- 
powder is shrouded in obscurity and doubt. The Chinese, that 
peculiar race who acquired civilisation so soon, and whose progress 
as strangely ceased, knew and used it for centuries before it made 
its way in Europe. The great wall of China (200 B.C.) has 
embrasures for cannon. It seems very doubtful whether, as an 
explosive and incendiary agent, it was not used both by the Greeks, 
Romans, and Arabs, and it is now believed that the secret came 
westward from India, and it is on record that firearms were used 
in 690 A.D., at the siege of Mecca. <A receipt for making gun- 
powder is to be found in the writings of Marcus Greecus, 846 A.D., 
and in the 13th century it was not only used regularly in the war 
between the Chinese and Tartars, but also at the siege of Seville 
in Spain by the Moors. This effectually does away with the bogus 
claims of Roger Bacon. and of his predecessors, the monks of 
Friberg, to whom the credit of the invention was at one time 
widely given. 
As can be readily understood, the mortar, or bomb-shell, was 
the earliest, as well as the simplest, means of throwing stones into a 
besieged city, or into the camp of the enemy. Following this, 
several guns or mortars were made of bars of wrought iron, and 
joined together by hoops. A notable and early example is to be 
seen in Vienna, 3 ft. 7 ins. in diameter and 8 ft. 2 ins. in length. 
The first cannon was, doubtless, a tube of wrought iron, open at 
both ends, the charge being inserted at one end, which was then 
plugged with wedges of wood and metal. Engines such as these 
are first mentioned in 1801, when the town of Amberg, in Germany, 
had constructed a large cannon; in 1313 Ghent, in Flanders, had 
stone-throwing guns, and it would probably be from here that 
Edward III. obtained his cannon, first used against the Scots in 
1327. During that century it is undoubted that many wooden 
cannon were used, as also tubes of copper cased in leather. 
Muzzle-loading and cast-iron guns gradually supplanted the old 
breech-loading, wrought-iron tubes; and leaden bullets are said to 
have first been used in 1346, iron balls coming into use about 1400. 
Trunnions, to support and balance the gun on its carriage, were 
first used in Germany in the 15th century, and it must be stated 
that nearly all the most important improvements in firearms are 
due to the Germans, who, in the Middle Ages, were also the best 
makers of arms and coats of mail. These include the rifled barrel. 
ae 
