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Show h . 1 Great Invention and DucovcrU y THOMACBRAOQ Cesyrlrbt. llll iN. T. xtvealag Werldl. rrsss Pah, Ce. I' " FIBgARM.1 Man's original means of defense was bis fist. It did net take him very long to think of the eeeistanc that he might find in a club, or. atone, or long, aharpened stick. Krom theee cloee quarter weapons man presently thought out the elde that added Immensely to the length aad power of hla arm the Javelin, the bow and arrow, and th still more ertectlve crossbow. Theee latter arms. In addition to affording him a safer dletance from which to flglit, greatly Increased his fighting power. , . . It waa ut until the middle of the fifteenth cento nr. however, that firearms fire-arms proper put In their appearance. The discovery of gunpowder gradually grad-ually led the way to the cumbersome "bombards" and .' "culverine." which erude we a poos evotuted Into the somewhat lee crude matchlock, and the matchlock slowly . became the "flint aad stsel." " It waa with the old flint and steel that our forefatbere won their Independence Inde-pendence from Oreat Britain, and with tke eame weapon were fought (he Napoteoate wans. The flint and steel had a etralght bore. But about 1(0 an Auatrtan Invented the nfled gun. and forty years later 1M01 ths breech loader wae Invented la London. But It waa net until the outbreak of th. Civil war and the Franco- Pruao lan war ltlt that th breech loader began to bo used to any appreciable ex-teat. ex-teat. The Isteaea ef the use ef this for-mtdable for-mtdable srm wss, of course, owing te th lack of the cartridge, the Invention In-vention of the Frenchman Houillea -i . .H . 1 t.T The eaU from the bare flet of the primitive man to the great guns with which the Germans demolished the fortification of Liege, Namur aad Antwerp at certainly a long one. Not long age I Blood near the slump of trees en Cemetery- ridge, at Gettysburg, Get-tysburg, aad looked across the narrow nar-row valley that separated the contending con-tending armies oa those ever famoue daye tJulv 1. ( and, . 1M). and I eould hardly reeUse the fact that the apposing "big guns" were only a mile aiorced wpea me a moat vivid realisation of the great Improvement that haa been made In the last slaty yeare la man's mesas f ffea and defeae. When WS stop to think of seen of the usee to which theee Inventions have been pat, we are half Inclined te wieh they had never been found out; end yet a thrill of pride goee through u when we coatetrfplate the almoet Inconeelvable mental advance from the oaveraaa I the aaaa of to-' y. . . |