so 



[No. 1, 



On Early Asiatic Fire Weapons. — By Major- General 

 R. Maclaga^ E. E. 



The use of fire in some form or other in war, must have suggested 

 itself to fighting people at a very early period in all countries, and has 

 probably been practised in all ages, both for attack and for defence. To 

 carry fire and sword into an enemy's territory is the common representation of 

 active and desolating aggression. And from the simple and direct application 

 of fire to the destruction of dwellings and other property, it was a natural step 

 to devise ways of applying it from a distance by means of burning matter 

 attached to missiles. 



In our day the term fire-arms is applied to weapons which, by means 

 of explosive matter, project heavy bodies to a distance, though no fire may 

 be carried by the missile itself. Early fire weapons in all countries sent the 

 fire with the missile, discharging it by the mechanical appliances in ordinary 

 use for throwing missiles of other kinds. 



When the use of igneous projectiles of any kind came to be commonly 

 practised, endeavour was then made to devise means of projecting them 

 with force that they might reach to a greater distance ; and, at the same 

 time, of making them as tenacious as possible of the fire they carried, and as 

 violent as possible in their combustion. Success in the first of these objects 

 would, with the more ordinary inflammable materials, defeat the second, # 

 and a great advantage was gained by the use, for this purpose, of combusti- 

 bles of some more powerful kind. 



The earliest kinds of fire-missiles appear to have been much the same 

 everywhere — arrows tipped with oiled flax, or wrapped with some soft mat- 

 ter soaked in oil, and discharged in the ordinary way from bows. Such was 

 the simple contrivance which, nearly five centuries before our era, the Per- 

 sians who had occupied Mars Hill, made use of to fire the palisades of the 

 defenders of the Acropolis. f And such, probably with little variation, were 

 the fire-arrows J that were used in all countries for some hundreds of years. 

 After a time, the improvement was introduced of putting the fire in a small 

 perforated case, or hollow enlargement of the shaft, a little behind the 

 point, which was roughly barbed to make it hold hard in the object assailed 

 and keep the fire applied so long as it lasted. This was the malleolus, as 



* So with one of the early forms of fire-arrow, — Et si emissa lentius arcu invalido 

 (ictu enim rapidiore exstinguitur ) haeserit usquam, tenaciter cremat, &c. Ammian. 

 Marcell., XXIII, 4, 15 and XXIII, 6, 37. 



f Herod., VIII. 52. 



% Alluded to generally in Eph. vi. 16 as fieXri TreTrupo^eVa, and more or less specifi- 

 cally by various authors as nvpcjyopoi burroi, -rrvpfyopa ro^v/jLara, ra irvpofioXa, &c. 



