THB ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
37 
the use of granulated powder t No gun then made could have withstood 
the force of a large charge—and, bearing in mind the rapid increase of strain 
as compared to the increase of calibre, no large projectile could have been 
fired. Small projectiles, no matter what their velocity, would never have had 
the moral effect of those huge masses of stone from 200 lb. to 450 lb. in 
weight, crushing and annihilating everything except thick masonry. Again, 
had the art of constructing first rate guns been developed, what would have 
been gained where the powder was so weak as not to require them p We 
shall find, as we proceed in our enquiry, how the attack was made to keep 
pace with, or rather to overtake the systems of defence, which were altered 
to resist the force of the guns brought against them. 
In the field, cannon had as yet made but small progress. Cumbrous, slowly 
loaded, and very costly both to manufacture and to transport; their effects 
were not to be compared with those produced by the longbow with its rapid 
delivery of a shower of arrows. Hand guns were invented, but were rude 
and clumsy in form; and scarcely to be distinguished from the small cannon, 
which in one instance, were mounted to the number of 144 on one carriage, 
and oftener two, three, or four on a small two-wheeled carriage, for service 
in the field. 
Thus far we have had to trust to verbal description alone, but in the next 
paper we shall enter upon a period where we have not only the artists of the 
fifteenth century to portray for us varieties of form and material, but some 
of the very pieces of ordnance which were actually employed. 
