Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/620

558 modern firelock, having the touch-hole on the right side of the barrel, with a pan for the priming, a trigger, and a pair of movable nippers, called serpentine, for holding the match, was invented in Spain in the time of Francis I. (1515-1547). The muschite (so named from the sparrow-hawk, like the falcon or small cannon) which was larger, heavier, and more powerful than the harquebus, came into use shortly afterwards, and was well known in England before the close of the 16th century. On account of its weight it was provided with a long rest, forked in the upper part and furnished with a spike to stick in the ground. The musket and harquebus when first employed by the French armies were contemptuously spoken of by contemporary writers, by whom they were considered inferior to arblasts and cross-bows. The wheel-lock, which was invented at Nuremberg in 1515, was but sparingly applied to the harquebus and musket on account of the costliness of its mechanism and the uncertainty of its action. The same objection applied to the snaphaunces, the precursors of the first flint locks, and even to the flint locks themselves, which were invented in France about 1640, and it was not till the beginning of the 18th century that the flint-lock musket finally superseded the old match lock. In 1807 a Scottish clergyman, Alexander Forsyth, took out a patent for a percussion gun, though it was not till 1820 that it began to come into general use. The system of firing the charge by a fulminate was followed by the invention of the needle-gun, the first model of which was constructed in 1827 by Jean Nicolas Dreyse, a native of Erfurt. Improvements in the mode of adapting the bullet to the rifled grooves successively led to the perfected system of the Minie rifle, by which the explosion of the charge expands the cup-shaped end of the conical bullet, and drives it into all the grooves, a process which was previously effected by hammering with the ramrod. The needle-gun was first made breech-loading in 1836, and since that time the improvements effected have been mainly directed to the combination of length of range with accuracy of aim and rapidity of fire. According to an official report, the results of the trial at Spandau of the needle-gun used by the different nations of Europe was as follows: the Prussian, 12 shots per minute; the Chasse- pot, 11 ; the Snider (England) 10; the Peabody (Switzer land), 13; the Werndl (Austria), 12; the Remington (Denmark), 14. Neither breech-loaders nor revolvers, however, are inventions of modern date. Both were known in Germany as early as the close of the 15th century. There are in the Muse&quot;e d Artillerie at Paris wheel-lock harquebuses of the 16th century which are breech-loaders ; and there is, in the Tower armoury, a revolver with the old match-lock, the date of which is about 1550. A German harquebus of the 16th century, in the museum of Sigrna- ringen, is a revolver of seven barrels. Nor is rifling a new thing in fire-arms, for there was a rifled variety of the old harquebus of the 15th century, in which the balls were driven home by a mallet, and a patent was taken out in England for rifling in 1635. All these systems were thus known at an early period in the history of fire-arms, but it is only the perfecting of their mechanism and rifling, the improvements in the gunpowder and the cartridge, and above all the adoption of the system of firing by a fulminate, that have enabled them to be used with the pre cision, length of range, and rapidity of fire, that now form such striking features in the warfare of modern times. It remains only to notice the bayonet, the invention of which, about 1650, has been claimed for Pusdygur, a native of Bayonne. The bayonet in its simple plug form, inserted into the mouth of the barrel, was adopted in France and England about 1675. In 1689 it was attached by two rings to the barrel by General Mackay, and the socketed bayonet was introduced by Vauban into the French army in 1703. In these days of precision of aim with long-range projectiles the bayonet, once the most decisive of modern weapons, has become of secondary importance.

Collections.—The formation of historical collections of arms and armour dates no further back than the commencement of the 16th century. The earliest is that made by Louis XII. at Amboise in 1502. The magnificent collection at Dresden was begun about 1553. The Anibras collection, now at Vienna, of which a series of illustrative photographs has been published by the Baron von Sacken, was commenced in 1570. There is also a splendid collection in the Imperial Arsenal at Vienna, which has been described, with illustrations, by Captain Leitner. The Mus^e d Artillerie at Paris, catalogued by M. 1 Haridon, is one of the richest and best organised collections in Europe. In the Armeria at Turin there is a fine collection, of which a catalogue has been published by Count Seyssel. The collection at Sigmaringen is cata logued and illustrated by Dr Lehner, and that of Munich by M. de Hefner-Alteneck. Of the remarkable collections at Tzarskoe Selo, St Petersburg, and at Madrid, there are no detailed descriptions. The collection in the Tower of London, which was classified by Dr Meyrick, and cata logued by Mr John Hewitt, contains about 6000 examples, from the commencement of the Middle Ages downwards. The most remarkable private collection ever formed in this or any other country was that of Llewelyn Meyrick at Goodrich Court. It is to be regretted that the opportunity of acquiring this collection in its integrity was missed by the Government. It may be noticed as an indication of popular interest in the subject, that a Museum of Arms, including specimens from the earliest period, has been recently established in Birmingham, containing, in addi tion to a. series of fire-arms granted by the Government, a fine and extensive collection made in Italy by the Cavaliere Callandra, of which the guardians of the Birmingham Proof House have become the purchasers. If we except the National Museum of the Antiquaries at Edinburgh, which contains a fine series of stone and bronze weapons, and a few typical examples of the arms of later times, there is no public collection of arms and armour in Scot land.  ARMSTRONG,, a physician, litterateur, and poet, the friend of Thomson, Mallet, and Wilkes, was born about 1709 at Castletown, Roxburghshire, where his father was parish minister. He graduated M.D. at Edinburgh university, and soon afterwards settled in London, where, however, his professional success was small. In all probability he paid more attention to literature than to medicine. He was, in 1746, appointed one of the physicians to the military hospital behind Buckingham House ; and, in 1760, physician to the army in Germany, an appointment which he held till the peace of 1763. His latter years seem to have been embittered by disappointments, as is evinced by the tone of his writings, in which he particularly directs his sarcasms against his medical brethren and the reviewers. He died in 1 7 7 9. Armstrong s first publication, an anonymous one, entitled An Essay for Abridging the Study of Physic (1735), was a satire on the ignorance of the apothecaries and medical men of his day. This was followed two years after by the Economy of Love, a poem the indecency of which damaged his professional practice. In 1744 appeared his Art of Preserving Health, a very successful didactic poem, and the one production on which his literary reputation rests. Along with this poem were published, in 1770, a number of shorter poetical pieces, under the title of Miscellanies, in which he displays con siderable humour and powers of observation.