EVOLUTION OF GUNS AND RIFLES 
The earliest weapons fired round balls, of stone, iron, or lead. In default 
of a ball, it would be an obvious expedient to fire a load of any smaller stuff 
that might be at hand. No record, however, appears of the first making 
of small round grains of lead for use in firearms, i.e., of small shot 
as distinct from bullets. Yet this was a very positive advance, and one 
distinctively identified with firearms. 
There remain in museums and armouries many specimens from which 
the successive steps of improvement may be gathered. The touch -hole 
communicating with the charge was made to emerge at the side of the 
barrel instead of at the top, and was fitted with a hollow shelf or pan to 
hold enough powder to ensure the ignition of the charge by the slow match. 
In this position it was both better sheltered and more accessible, and it 
became possible to fit a swinging or sliding cover to it. A simple curved 
lever to hold the match was fitted to the stock; this served to lower the 
match to the pan, and avoided the difficulty of holding the weapon firmly 
and also properly directed on the mark, with one hand, while the other 
applied the match. This simple mechanism was soon modified and the 
cock for holding the match put in front of the touch -hole, a spring keeping 
it from falling until a small movement of the “ tricker,” magnified by a 
system of levers, lowered it. 
This arrangement gave a weapon which was of practical use, and which, 
even to the present day, holds its own where conditions are really primitive. 
Given such a gun, powder, shot, and any rudimentary form of wadding, 
the shooter’s equipment only requires a hank of match, which can be 
made at home, and some means of striking fire to light it, to be complete. 
But even so, how laborious, how uncertain, and how much at the mercy 
of the weather were the efforts of the sportsman! The mere loading of 
the charge in four separate sections, powder, wad, shot, wad, and the 
cleaning out and priming of the pan, common to all muzzle loaders, were 
by no means everything. For all these operations had to be performed 
while the match — a cord of smouldering tow, lit at both ends — was held 
in the fingers; and when it was desired to fire, the match was “ cocked ” 
i.e., it was inserted in the “ cock ” and so adjusted for length that, on 
the cock being lowered, its end should come into contact with the priming 
powder in the pan. This could be done only a very short time before firing, 
since, as the match smouldered, it grew shorter, and ash accumulated 
on its end, and had to be removed by blowing with the mouth. The greatest 
care had to be exercised to avoid the imminent risk of the fire from the 
283 
