_The Snap-hance._--This variety of lock was invented in Holland or Germany about 1550, and from the simplicity and ease with which it was made and the consequent cheapness of production, rapidly came into favour in England and on the Continent. It is said to have been evolved by a body of Dutch poultry stealers (Snaphans), who could not use the matchlock because of the light entailed, or the wheel-lock because of the expense, and thereupon devised the snap-hance, little dreaming that the invention would become so popular. The wheel-lock was superseded by a hammer which struck upon a piece of sulphurous pyrites; the flash-pan was the same, but the cover was actuated by a spring and flew back when the hammer descended, thus allowing a free passage for the shower of sparks. _The Flint-lock._--The snap-hance was undoubtedly the intermediate weapon between the wheel-lock and flint-lock. The latter may be claimed as an English invention, as a specimen occurs in the Tower having the date 1614 upon it, the date generally assigned for its introduction being 1630 according to continental records. The knowledge that fire could be produced by striking flint upon steel was well known to the ancients. In the flint-lock the fall of the hammer containing the flint was made to open the flash-pan and at the same time to strike sparks from its cover. The earlier kinds had all the mechanism upon the outside of the lock, but subsequently it was hidden, and a tumbler connected the mainspring with the hammer. Highly decorated examples of the flint-lock are common, especially those of Italian and Spanish origin (Plate XLI.*). The weapon did not come into extensive use in England until the second half of the seventeenth century, but it eventually superseded all others, and was adapted for every kind of firearm, both military and civil, and remained in use until the advent of the percussion cap about 1830. Pistols underwent the same variations as the larger weapon, but these were often combined, being fixed in shields, battle-axes, pole-axes, daggers, halberds, &c. The subject of this chapter is an extremely wide one, and an attempt to cover it completely in the pages of this work has not been attempted; the broad facts given here may, however, be acceptable to the general reader. FOOTNOTES [1] From “Projectile-throwing Engines of the Ancients,” by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Bart., by kind permission of the author, to whose work I am indebted for several particulars in this chapter.