28 
THE BROME-WALTON FAMILY. 
word is universally accepted as having owed its tertiary or popular 
derivation to the bombos of the siege of Syracuse, the unearthly noise 1 
made by the tubes of Archimedes, Master-Gunner of Greece, 2 which 
terrorised the Roman besiegers, under Marcellus, B.C. 212, who help¬ 
lessly beheld the burning of their ships and the sinking of their 
five-banked galleys in the harbour by projectiles hurled through em¬ 
brasures 3 by the great Master of Artillery. Its secondary derivation 
belongs to the OM or fire (sun) principle or element (referred to in 
Chapter I.), and there is only a shade of difference between the archaic 
significations of Bomb (B’OM) and Brome (Br’OM), the son or agent 
of Fire, i.e. Fireworker ; but its prime is of course the racial Q, sun, or 
bomb letter. 4 
Alas! by the untimely death of that great master of artillery, in the 
casemate of Syracusae, his secrets were lost; and we know not of a 
certainty whether our medioeval substitutes are the same. We have, 
however, identified the Greek fire of Byzantium with the Marcus 
Graocus ingredients of gunpowder A.D. 1000 5 ; in the Museum of Artil¬ 
lery at Woolwich we possess one of the monster bronze tubes (screw 
gun) of Muhammed IT., the conqueror of the Greek empire ; and 
who shall differentiate the tubes by which— 
(a) In Asia, the Oxydracae, those “holy men of old, beloved of 
the gods,” overthrew the Egyptian Hercules with “tem¬ 
pests and thunderbolts shot from their walls,” before 
whom the Great Alexander prudently retired.—“ Appo- 
lonius Tyannaeus ,” by Philostratus (L 2, cxiv.J , quoted in 
“Military Antiquities” (Grose), Yol. I., p. 392. 
( b ) At Syracuse, B..C. 212, Archimedes sank the 200-oared Roman 
galleys in that harbour.— Livy, 24/34. Plutarch’s Mar - 
cellus. 
(c) At Constantinople, A.D. 1453, Muhammed II. sank, by 
vertical fire, the chain of Greek ships defending the Golden 
Horn.— General Sir Henry Lefroy, F.R.8. , “Proceedings” 
R.A.I., Yol. YI., No. 6, p. 209. 
(d) Near Syracuse, New York, A.D. 1887. Balinski’s tube sank 
the two-masted experimental hulk, by vertical and hori¬ 
zontal fire, from Fort Lafayette.— -Official Report (blue- 
book) 1887. (?) 
According to Siemienowicz, 6 the smaller Bomb or Grenado (so named 
from the Punic fruit, the rind of which encloses a vast number of 
pungent grenates, or grains, or pellets—and this, he adds, is the same 
i Greek thesaurus. “ Military Antiquities” (Grose), Vol. I., p. 394. 
2 See The Master-Gunner of England (“Proceedings” R.A.I., Vol. XIV., No. 3, p. 97). 
Archimedes, inventor ac machinator bellicorum tormentorum. Livy, 24/14.34. 
s Livy, 24/34. Plutarch’s “ Life of Marcellus .” 
4 “ Origin of Language ” (Xavanagh), Vol. I. With the gunner’sBomb or semi-Bomb OOCi and 
vertical or horizontal tau T, anyone can construct the alphabet and language of the whole Indo- 
European family. Truly may it be affirmed of the Ubique Bombardier, as of the Sun, 
“ Mis LINE has gone forth thro ’ all the tvorld, 
His WORDS to the end of the earth.” 
s “Proceedings,” R.A.I., Vol. XX., No. 6, p. 300 (note 1). The Master-Gunner of England, 
“ Proceedings ” R.A.I., Vol. XIV., No. 3. 
6 Siemienowicz, p. 210 of Sherlocke’s translation of “ The Great Art of Artillery.” 
