Artillery (in the large acceptation of the term) took place long before the invention of gun-powder. We trace the art to the remotest antiquity, since the Sacred Records acquaint us, that one of the kings of Judah, eight hundred years before the Christian æra, erected on the towers and bulwarks of Jerusalem engines of war, the contrivance of ingenious men, for shooting arrows and great stones for the defence of that city[1]. Such machines were afterwards known to the Greeks and Romans by the names of _balista_, _catapulta_ and others, which had amazing powers, and were not less terrible in their effects than the cannon and mortars of the moderns. It appears that the _balista_ was contrived to shower volleys of darts and arrows of a very large size upon the enemy, whilst the _catapulta_ or _onagra_ (as it was otherwise called) was fitted not only for that purpose, but for discharging stones of an enormous weight; I might say _rocks_, since some of them are reported to have weighed several hundred pounds. Batteries composed of numerous pieces of that kind of artillery, nothing could withstand. Yet, if we are rightly informed, their sole principle of motion consisted in the spring of a strongly-twisted cordage, made of animal substances singularly tough and elastic. These warlike instruments continued, not only during the time of the Roman empire, but to the 12th and 13th centuries, as we find from history; nor indeed is it probable that they were totally laid aside, till gun-powder and the modern ordnance, attaining a good degree of perfection, superseded their use. The very intelligent commentator of POLYBIUS[2] is of opinion, that the military art rather lost than gained by the exchange of the _catapulta_ for the mortar: but however that point may be determined in speculation, it is not likely that the ancient _tormenta militaria_ will ever be revived; but that all nations will keep to the art of gunnery and study how to improve it; that is, they will adhere to a system of artillery, wherein the moving power depends on the expansive force of gun-powder, or of some other substance of a similar nature. Upon the first application of this principle to the purposes of war, nothing perhaps was less thought of than to assist so empirical a practice by scientific rules; for, however aiding in these matters the ancient mechanicians might have been, who, like ARCHIMEDES, had invented or perfected some of the _balistic_ machines, no praise seemed now due to the mathematicians for either the discovery or improvement of the new artillery. In fact, we find the practice of the art had subsisted about 200 years, before any geometer considered it as one that admitted a theory, or at least such a theory as was grounded on geometry.