FO 



E, Maclagan — On Early Asiatic Eire Weapons. 



[No. 1, 



posed, be readily followed by the invention of cannon. Yet though this 

 property of gunpowder was known to Eoger Bacon, no form of instrument 

 for applying it to the purpose of propelling missiles of any kind seems to 

 have been known till long after. And the invention of cannon does not 

 appear to be assignable now, any more than that of gunpowder, to any par- 

 ticular individual.* 



The compositions above referred to, for which the Arabs had receipts 

 in times preceding the knowledge of gunpowder artillery in Europe, appear 

 distinctly to have been applied as combustibles, — in fire-works and fiery 

 missiles. They were forms of fire-powder, not gunpowder. And they may 

 have been the first to make them. Colonel Fave, in his Etudes sur le passe 

 et Vavenir de VArtillerie, goes further, however, and says " Les Arabes 

 paraissent avoir ete les premiers a lancer les projectiles par la force explosive 

 de la poudre a canon, "f It may be so, but there does not appear to be 

 good evidence of it. They led the way to gunpowder, through Greek Tire 

 and fire-works, and made it, but did not apparently find out, before 

 European nations, its most important form and application. 



It has been noticed that the use of modern artillery made very un- 

 equal progress in different countries. The use of gunpowder, like that of 

 Greek Fire, was, in its early days, largely dependent on the facilities for pro- 

 curing the materials and manufacturing the powder, or on the facilities for 

 obtaining the powder ready-made from other countries. With communica- 

 tions imperfect and tedious, supplies of gunpowder would be uncertain. 

 An Eastern traveller in the beginning of the seventeenth century says that 

 at that time a place in the neighbourhood of Achin " supplies in a manner 

 all the Indies with sulphur to make powder of." J This was rather a wide 

 general statement. In Scotland, a few years after the time of which this 

 traveller writes, it is recorded, under date July 19th, 1626, that " amongst 

 the preparations for war at this time, the Privy Council, reflecting on the 

 inconveniences of being wholly dependent on foreign countries for gunpow- 

 der, empowered Sir James Baillie of Lochend, Knight, to see if he could 

 induce some Englishmen to come and settle in Scotland for the manufac- 

 ture of that article." 



* History says nothing in support of the pretensions of Butler's claimant " Mag- 

 nano, great in martial fame", 



Of warlike engines he was author, 

 Devised for quick dispatch of slaughter. 

 The cannon, blunderbus, and saker, 

 He was th' inventor of, and maker. 



Hudibras, Part I, Canto 2. 

 f Quoted in Quarterly Review, July 1868. Art. IV. " Gunpowder." 

 % M. Beaulieu's Voyage to the East Indies, A. U. 1619. Harris's Collection, II, 250. 



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