ARCHERY. 
breake, the man is loft, and Is no man; for his weapon is 
gone; and, although lie have two fringes put on at once, 
yet he /hall have fmall leifure and lefl'e room to bend his 
bowe ; therefore, God fend us good ftringers both for 
warre and peace!” A law of Charlemagne, made in the 
year 813, feems likewife to exprefs the cuftom of tiling 
bows with two firings; this is further confirmed by the 
figure of an archer, reprefented on a curious antique ring, 
in the pofleffion of Sir James Pringle. This ring was found 
in 1791, upon the field of the famous battle of Bannock¬ 
burn, fought feveral hundred years ago ; an impreffion of 
which is engraved in the Archery-Plate I. fig. 14. The 
bow reprefented in the hands of this archer has two firings 
attached to it; one of which only is drawn up w'ith the 
arrow, while the other remains unemployed; and this 
feems to have been the method of ufing the bow thus dou¬ 
bly fining. Afcham mentions, that they formerly made 
ufe of two firings in England : the large thick firing, and 
a fort much fmaller. “ The one (fays he) is fafe for the 
bow, but does not fhoot firong; while the other is infi¬ 
nitely preferable in long diftances, but at the fame time 
does not diredl the arrow fo true, and is fooner broken.” 
We are not acquainted with the feveral ways which were 
praftifed by the ancients in ftringing their bows; it was 
ufual, however, to hold the bow in the left hand by the 
middle, and to prefs on the upper end with the right, at 
the fame time flipping the firing into its place, while the 
lower end of the weapon relied againft the knee of the 
left leg. There is a figure very diftinilly drawn on a me¬ 
dal in Dr. Hunter’s mufeum, v which reprefents an archer 
ftringing his bow, exadlly in the pofition now deferibed, 
and which is copied in the annexed Archery-Plate I. fig. 15. 
It is a Cretan coin. 
The fafhion of the arrow feems to have undergone lefs 
variation than that of the bow. The Scythian, Indian, 
and Dacian, bows, have each their chara£leriftic forms ; 
but the head, or the feathers, of an arrow, are the only 
parts which can be varied materially. The jubilances from 
which arrows have been fabricated, have differed in almoft 
every country. They were frequently made of reeds, as 
we may infer from the Latin word arundo, fignifying both 
an arrow and a reed. Pliny informs us, that this fubftance 
was in the higheft repute for the purpofe we rhention, and 
the calamus, another fpecies of reed, fays he, hath over¬ 
come half the nations of the world in battle. The modern 
arrows from India are made of cane, which being of a 
fpecies very ftiff and flender, and at the lame time of lit¬ 
tle weight, they fly with uncommon velocity from the 
bow, and are capable of withftanding every reiiftance from 
objefts which oppefe their motion. Afcham lias enume¬ 
rated fifteen forts of wood, of which arrows were made 
in England at the time he lived, viz. “ Brazell, Turkie- 
woode, Fufticke, Sugerchefte, Hardbeame, Byrche, Aflie, 
Cake, Serviftree, Aulder, Blackthorne, Beche, Elder, 
Afpe, Salow.” Of thefe afp and afn were preferred to 
the reft; the one for target-fnooting, the other for war. 
Stones appear to have been one of the firft materials 
for pointing or forming the heads of arrows; and there 
are many curious circumftances relating to this practice. 
The clafs principally made ufe of in all nations, was the 
filiceous ; as common flint, jafper, agate, &c. There are 
the beft reafons for imagining that thefe arrow-heads were 
in ufe from the higheft antiquity, as there is fcarcely any 
country in which they have not been found buried in the 
earth. They are not uncommon in Scotland, England, 
and Ireland; and America produces them in all its parts. 
Thefe ftone heads have been called ceraunies, and are re¬ 
ported by Pliny to have fallen from heaven in ftorms of 
thunder. Others have clafled them as cryftallizations, and 
arranged them among the natural productions of the earth. 
But they were in faCt the heads applied to arrows, in the 
early ages of the world, and bear the mod evident marks 
of manufacture and art. They feem to have been.formed 
by hammering and rubbing. Thofe found in Ireland and 
Scotland are generally of a mixed brown-coloured flint. 
Very fmall arrow-heads are found in Barbadoes, made of 
a fiffile talky ftone. Inliruments and weapons, fuch as 
axes, chifels, arrow-heads, the points of darts and lances, 
have been found of the fame materials. Both Dampier 
and Cook difeovered people who were in the practice of 
tiling thefe ftone tools and weapons; and the Spaniards, at 
their firft defeent upon America, found no other in ufe 
among the natives of that continent ; for, although the 
Americans had iron ore in abundance, they were ignorant 
of its ufe till taught by the Spaniards. It is remarkable 
that thefe weapons are made with greater regularity than 
w e might reafonably expect, conlideringthe imperfections 
of the inliruments which mult have fafhioned them. They 1 
are exceedingly Iharp, and the edges frequently indented 
like the teeth of a faw. Thefe arrow-heads likewife, tho’ 
found in countries the mod remote from each other, are 
ftill nearly alike in Ihape. Thofe found in the parts bor¬ 
dering on the ftraits of Magellan are Laid, by Dr. Wood¬ 
ward, to referable thofe of this ifiand. lie adds his rea¬ 
fons, “ That different men having in view the fame defign, 
conducting their thoughts in a regular manner, may come, 
in the purfuit, to the fame conclufion ; and, as in this cafe, 
hit on the fame fhape for a weapon of fuch deiign. But 
it is much more likely that they all came from the fame 
origin, and that the firft model was brought from Babel 
to the various countries, whither the feveral colonies, lent 
thence, made their migrations.” In the Archery-Plate II- 
are reprefented three of thefe ancient arrow-heads. 
The horns of animals have been employed for the point¬ 
ing of weapons in ancient times ; and, as wild beads wore 
no armour, and favage nations little covering, arms of this 
kind would be found efficacious in the hand of the hunter, 
or warrior. Indeed, it is not an uncommon practice at 
this day among thofe nations ignorant in metals-. Inftru- 
ments of war, before the knowledge of the operations of 
fire, could,not have been pointed with metal; but the mo¬ 
ment the art of feparating that fubftance from the ore w as 
known, metallic weapons would no doubt be fabricated, 
and introduced in battle. Arrows which ufually had been 
pointed with horn, bone, or flint,, would be covered with 
more permanent materials. Copper, and what was called 
brafs, feem to have been firft in ufe. Arrows and javelins 
were commonly headed with brafs, or copper, in the time 
of Homer, as appears from many paflageS in the Iliad. 
Herodotus mentions a wonderful brafs cup, made from 
the heads of arrows. He fays, a king, named Ariantas, 
defiring to number the people of Scythia, commanded 
that each perfon in his dominions fhould bring the head of 
an arrow to him, under pain of death, in cafe any one 
negledled. From the heads which were collected, a cup 
was made, capable of holding fix hundred hogfiieads; 
and the thicknefs of the (ides of it was equal to fix digits.. 
The arrows now uled in the eaft are armed with a flat 
barbed iron point, about an inch in length, which is fixed 
on to the cane by a iliort ferrule. Sometimes the heads- 
are made in an acute pyramid, about one inch and an half 
long. The common (hooting arrows in England, as they 
are not defigned for war, are not very fharply pointed. 
The hides of the fliaft converge toan.obtule point, at the 
diftance of an inch. Neatnefs, not deftruCtion, is the ob¬ 
ject of them at prefent. 
There is a kind of arrow which, from the conftruflion 
of its head, is called the whijlling arrow. There are two 
methods in which the heads are made. The one is by 
having a ball of horn perforated with holes at the end, 
and fattened to the arrow, by the wood palling through 
it, and fitting tight. Another fort, which are ufually 
larger, and \yhich have a deeper tone, are made with a 
fcrevv in the middle of the ball. It is fuppofed thefe ar¬ 
rows were formerly applied to fome military ufe, and par¬ 
ticularly that of giving fignals in the night. The Chinefe 
have ufed them for this purpofe time immemorial. 
There are contrivances by which fmall-fhot and balls 
are difcharged from the bow, by a fpecies of arrow which, 
is fixed on the bow'fifing, by means of a perforation thro* 
®ne 
