~HOW MAN LEARNED TO SHOOT~
A naked savage found himself in the greatest danger. A wild beast,
hungry and fierce was about to attack him. Escape was impossible.
Retreat was cut off. He must fight for his life--but how?
Should he bite, scratch or kick? Should he strike with his fist? These
were the natural defences of his body, but what were they against the
teeth, the claws and the tremendous muscles of his enemy? Should he
wrench a dead branch from a tree and use it for a club? That would
bring him within striking distance to be torn to pieces before he could
deal a second blow.
There was but a moment in which to act. Swiftly he seized a jagged
fragment of rock from the ground and hurled it with all his force at
the blazing eyes before him; then another, and another, until the
beast, dazed and bleeding from the unexpected blows, fell back and gave
him a chance to escape. He knew that he had saved his life, but there
was something else which his dull brain failed to realize.
He had invented arms and ammunition!
In other words, he had needed to strike a harder blow than the blow of
his fist, at a greater distance than the length of his arm, and his
brain showed him how to do it. After all, what is a modern rifle but a
device which man has made with his brain permitting him to strike an
enormously hard blow at a wonderful distance? Firearms are really but a
more perfect form of stone-throwing, and this early Cave Man took the
first step that has led down the ages.
This strange story of a development has been taking place slowly
through thousands and thousands of years, so that today you are able to
take a swift shot at distant game instead of merely throwing stones.
[Illustration: THE SLING MAN IN ACTION
PRACTICE DEVELOPED SOME WONDERFUL MARKSMEN AMONG THE USERS OF THIS
PRIMITIVE WEAPON]
We do not know the name of the man who invented the sling. Possibly
he did not even have a name, but in some way he hit upon a scheme
for throwing stones farther, harder, and straighter than any of his
ancestors.
The men and women in the Cave Colony suddenly found that one
bright-eyed young fellow, with a little straighter forehead than the
others, was beating them all at hunting. During weeks he had been going
away mysteriously, for hours each day. Now, whenever he left the camp
he was sure to bring home game, while the other men would straggle back
for the most part empty-handed.
Was it witchcraft? They decided to investigate.
Accordingly, one morning several of them followed at a careful distance
as he sought the shore of a stream where water-fowl might be found.
Parting the leaves, they saw him pick up a pebble from the bank and
then to their surprise, take off his girdle of skin and place the stone
in its center, holding both ends with his right hand.
Stranger still, he whirled the girdle twice around his head, then
released one end so that the leather strip flew out and the stone shot
straight at a bird in the water.
The mystery was solved. They had seen the first slingman in action.
The new plan worked with great success, and a little practice made
expert marksmen. We know that most of the early races used it for
hunting and in war. We find it shown in pictures made many thousands of
years ago in ancient Egypt and Assyria. We find it in the Roman Army
where the slingman was called a “funditor.”
Surely, too, you remember the story of David and Goliath when the young
shepherd “prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone.”
Yet slings had their drawbacks. A stone slung might kill a bird or even
a man, but it was not very effective against big game.
What was wanted was a missile to pierce a thick hide.
Man had begun to make spears for use in a pinch, but would you like
to tackle a husky bear or a well-horned stag with only a spear for a
weapon?
No more did our undressed ancestors. The invention of the greatly
desired arm probably came about in a most curious way.
Long ages ago man had learned to make fire by patiently rubbing two
sticks together, or by twirling a round one between his hands with its
point resting upon a flat piece of wood.
[Illustration: THE “LONG BOW” IN SHERWOOD FOREST
ONE OF ROBIN HOOD’S FAMOUS BAND ENCOUNTERS A SAVAGE TUSKER AT CLOSE
RANGE]
In this way it could be made to smoke, and finally set fire to a tuft
of dried moss, from which he might get a flame for cooking. This was
such hard work that he bethought him to twist a string of sinew about
the upright spindle and cause it to twirl by pulling alternately at
the two string ends, as some savage races still do. From this it was
a simple step to fasten the ends of the two strings to a bent piece
of wood, another great advantage since now but one hand was needed to
twirl the spindle, and the other could hold it in place. This was the
“bow-drill” which also is used to this day.
But bent wood is apt to be springy. Suppose that while one were
bearing on pretty hard with a well-tightened string, in order to bring
fire quickly, the point of the spindle should slip from its block.
Naturally, it would fly away with some force if the position were just
right.
[Illustration: DEER STALKING WITH THE CROSSBOW
THIS COMPACT ARM WITH ITS SMALL BOLT AND GREAT POWER WAS POPULAR WITH
MANY SPORTSMEN]
There was one man who stopped short when he lost his spindle, for a
red-hot idea shot suddenly through his brain.
Once or twice he chuckled to himself softly. Thereupon he arose and
began to experiment. He chose a longer, springier piece of wood, bent
it into a bow, and strung it with a longer thong. He placed the end of
a straight stick against the thong, drew it strongly back, and released
it.
The shaft whizzed away with force enough to delight him, and lo, there
was the first Bow-and-Arrow!
Armed with his bow-and-arrow, man now was lord of creation. No longer
was it necessary for him to huddle with his fellows in some cave to
avoid being eaten by prowling beasts. Instead he went where he would
and boldly hunted the fiercest of them. In other words, his brain was
beginning to tell, for though his body was still no match for the lion
and the bear, he had thought out a way to conquer them.
Also he was better fed with a greater variety of game. And now, free
to come and go wherever he might find it, he was able to spread into
various lands and so to organize the tribes and nations which at last
gave us civilization and history.
A new weapon now came about through warfare. Man has been a savage
fighting animal through pretty much all his history, but while he tried
to kill the other fellow, he objected to being killed himself.
Therefore he took to wearing armor. During the Middle Ages he piled on
more and more, until at last one of the knights could hardly walk, and
it took a strong horse to carry him. When such a one fell, he went over
with a crash like a tin-peddler’s wagon, and had to be picked up again
by some of his men. Such armor would turn most of the arrows. Hence
invention got at work again and produced the Crossbow and its bolt. We
have already learned how the tough skin of animals brought about the
bow; now we see that man’s artificial iron skin caused the invention of
the crossbow.
What was the Crossbow? It was the first real hand-shooting machine. It
was another big step toward the day of the rifle. The idea was simple
enough. Wooden bows had already been made as strong as the strongest
man could pull, and they wished for still stronger ones--steel ones.
How could they pull them? At first they mounted them upon a wooden
frame and rested one end on the shoulder for a brace. Then they took to
pressing the other end against the ground, and using both hands. Next,
it was a bright idea to put a stirrup on this end, in order to hold it
with the foot.
Still they were not satisfied. “Stronger, stronger!” they clamored;
“give us bows which will kill the enemy farther away than he can shoot
at us! If we cannot set such bows with both arms let us try our backs!”
So they fastened “belt-claws” to their stout girdles and tugged the bow
strings into place with their back and leg muscles.
Who First Discovered the Power of Gunpowder?
Probably the Chinese, although all authorities do not agree. Strange,
is it not, that a race still using crossbows in its army should have
known of explosives long before the Christian Era, and perhaps as far
back as the time of Moses? Here is a passage from their ancient Gentoo
Code of Laws: “The magistrate shall not make war with any deceitful
machine, or with poisoned weapons, or with cannons or guns, or any kind
of firearms.” But China might as well have been Mars before the age of
travel. Our civilization had to work out the problem for itself.
It all began through playing with fire. It was desired to throw fire on
an enemy’s buildings, or his ships, and so destroy them.
Burning torches were thrown by machines, made of cords and springs,
over a city wall, and it became a great study to find the best burning
compound with which to cover these torches. One was needed which would
blaze with a great flame and was hard to put out.
Hence the early chemists made all possible mixtures of pitch, resin,
naphtha, sulphur, saltpeter, etc.; “Greek fire” was one of the most
famous.
Many of these were made in the monasteries. The monks were pretty much
the only people in those days with time for study, and two of these
shaven-headed scientists now had a chance to enter history. Roger Bacon
was the first. One night he was working his diabolical mixture in the
stone-walled laboratory, and watched, by the flickering lights, the
progress of a certain interesting combination for which he had used
pure instead of impure saltpeter.
Suddenly there was an explosion, shattering the chemical apparatus and
probably alarming the whole building. That explosion proved the new
combination was not fitted for use as a thrown fire; it also showed the
existence of terrible forces far beyond the power of all bow-springs,
even those made of steel.
Roger Bacon thus discovered what was practically gunpowder, as far
back as the thirteenth century, and left writings in which he
recorded mixing 11.2 parts of the saltpeter, 29.4 of charcoal, and
29 of sulphur. This was the formula developed as the result of his
investigations.
Berthold Schwartz, a monk of Freiburg, studied Bacon’s works and
carried on dangerous experiments of his own, so that he is ranked with
Bacon for the honor. He was also the first one to rouse the interest of
Europe in the great discovery.
[Illustration: THE “KENTUCKY RIFLE” WITH ITS FLINT-LOCK WAS ACCURATE
BUT MUST BE MUZZLE-CHARGED]
~THE FIRST REAL FIRE ARMS~
And then began the first crude, clumsy efforts at gunmaking. Firearms
were born.
Hand bombards and culverins were among the early types. Some of these
were so heavy that a forked support had to be driven into the ground,
and two men were needed, one to hold and aim, the other to prime and
fire.
Improvements kept coming, however. Guns were lightened and bettered in
shape. Somebody thought of putting a flash pan, for the powder, by the
side of the touch-hole, and now it was decided to fasten the slow-match
in a movable cock upon the barrel, and ignite it with a trigger. These
matches were fuses of some slow-burning fiber, like tow, which would
keep a spark for a considerable time. Formerly they had to be carried
separately, but the new arrangement was a great convenience and made
the match-lock. The cock, being curved like a snake, was called the
“serpentine.”
About the time sportsmen were through wondering at the convenience
of the match-lock, they began to realize its inconvenience. They
found that they burned up a great deal of fuse, and were hard to keep
lighted. Both statements were true, so inventors racked their brains
again for something better. They all knew you could bring sparks with
flint and steel, and that seemed an idea worth working on. A Nuremberg
inventor, in 1515, hit on the wheel-lock. In this a notched steel
wheel was wound up with a key like a clock. Flint or pyrite was held
against the jagged edge of the wheel by the pressure of the serpentine.
You pulled the trigger, then “whirr,” the wheel revolved, a stream of
sparks flew off into the flash-pan, and the gun was discharged.
[Illustration: WHEEL-LOCK RIFLE]
This gun worked beautifully, but it was expensive. Wealthy sportsmen
could afford them, and so for the first time firearms began to be used
for hunting. Some of these sixteenth and seventeenth century nabobs had
such guns of beautiful workmanship, so wrought and carved and inlaid,
that they must have cost a small fortune. You will find them in many
large museums to this day.
But now the robbers had their turn. There are two stories of the
invention of the flint-lock. Both deal with robbers, both have good
authority, and both may be true, for inventions sometimes are made
independently in different places.
One story runs that the flint-lock which was often styled “Lock à la
Miquelet,” from the Spanish word, “Miquelitos”--marauders--told its
origin in its name. The other is, that the flint-lock was invented in
Holland by gangs of thieves, whose principal business was to steal
poultry.
In either case the explanation is easy. The match-lock showed its fire
at night and wouldn’t do for thieves, the wheel-lock was too expensive,
so again necessity became the mother of a far-reaching invention.
Everybody knows what the flint-lock was like. You simply fastened a
flake of flint in the cock and snapped it against a steel plate. This
struck off sparks which fell into the flash-pan and fired the charge.
It was so practical that it became the form of gun for all uses; thus
gunmaking began to be a big industry. Invented early in the seventeenth
century, it was used by the hunters and soldiers of the next two
hundred years. Old people remember when flint-locks were plentiful
everywhere. In fact, they are still being manufactured and are sold
in some parts of Africa and the Orient. One factory in Birmingham,
England, is said to produce about twelve hundred weekly, and Belgium
shares in their manufacture. Some of the Arabs use them to this day in
the form of strange-looking guns with long, slender muzzles and very
light, curved stocks.
There were freak inventors in the flint-lock period just as there are
to-day. Some of them wrestled with the problem of repeating guns,
and put together a number of barrels, even seven in the case of one
carbine. Others tried revolving chambers, like our revolvers, and still
others, magazine stocks. Pistols came into use in many interesting
shapes, but these were too practical to be considered freaks.
~WHY WE CALL THEM PISTOLS~
Pistols, by the way, are named from the town of Pistola, Italy, where
they are said to have been invented and first used.
We must not forget that rifling was invented about the time that the
wheel-lock appeared, and had a great deal to do with the improvement
of shooting. Austrians claim its invention for Casper Zollner, of
Vienna, who cut straight grooves in the barrel’s bore. His gun is said
to have been used for the first time in 1498, but the Italians seem
to have still better warrant as these significant words appear in old
Latin Italian, under date of July 28th, 1476, in the inventory of the
fortress of Guastalla: “Also one iron gun made with a twist like a
snail shell.” The rifling made the bullet spin like a top as it flew
through the air, thus greatly improving its precision.
In the year 1807 the Rev. Alexander John Forsythe, LL.D., got his
patent papers for something far better than even the steady old flint.
He had invented the percussion system. In some form this has been used
ever since. Which is to say that when the hammer of your gun falls, it
doesn’t explode the powder, although it seems to. Instead it sets off a
tiny portion of a very sensitive chemical compound called the “primer,”
and the explosion of this “primer” makes the powder go off. Of course,
the two explosions come so swiftly that your ear hears only a single
bang.
Primers were tried in different forms called “detonators,” but the
familiar little copper cap was the most popular. No need to describe
them. Millions are still made to be used on old-fashioned nipple guns,
even in this day of fixed ammunition.
But now we come to another great development, the Breech-loader.
[Illustration: THE MODERN AUTOMATIC RIFLE
THE MODERN SPORTSMAN WITH HIS AUTOMATIC RIFLE IS PREPARED FOR ALL
EMERGENCIES]
Perhaps you have had to handle an old muzzle-loader. It was all right
so long as you knew of nothing better, but think of it now that you
have your beautiful breech-loader. Do you remember how sometimes you
overloaded, and the kick made your shoulder lame for a week? Or how,
when you were excited you shot away your ramrod? The gun fouled too,
and was hard to clean, the nipples broke off, the caps split, and the
breeches rusted so that you had to take them to a gunsmith. Yes, in
spite of the game it got, it was a lot of trouble, now you come to
think of it. How different it all is now!
[Illustration: ASSEMBLING REPEATING SHOTGUNS AND RIFLES]
Breech-loaders were hardly new. King Henry VIII of England, he of the
many wives, had a match-lock arquebus of this type dated 1537. Henry IV
of France even invented one for his army, and others worked a little
on the idea from time to time. But it wasn’t until fixed ammunition
came into use that the breech-loader really came to stay--and that
was only the other day. You remember that the Civil War began with
muzzle-loaders and ended with breech-loaders.
[Illustration: ASSEMBLING AUTO SHOTGUNS]
[Illustration: SOME OF THE SHOOTING TESTS]
Houiller, the French gunsmith, hit on the great idea of the cartridge.
If you were going to use powder, ball and percussion primer to get your
game, why not put them all into a neat, handy, gas-tight case?