When the English unsuccessfully besieged St. Malo, 400 cannon are said to have been used, but these are supposed to have been of the smaller kind, called hand cannon, or culverins, which were carried by two men, and fired from a kind of tripod or rest fixed in the ground. ~Cannon general.~ ~Bombards made of iron.~ ~Bronze.~ ~Leather, rope, &c.~ ~Wood.~ From this period, cannon were used in all the offensive and defensive operations of war; though a considerable time elapsed before it became a really serviceable arm for field operations. The earlier kinds of cannon were called bombards or bombardæ. Those first employed were clumsy, (plate 16) and ill contrived, wider at the mouth than at the chamber. They merely consisted of bars of iron, arranged in such a manner that their internal aspects should form a tube. The bars were not welded together, but merely confined by hoops. They were also made of iron bars over a cylinder of copper, strengthened by iron hoops, driven on red hot, and others were entirely composed of copper. Bronze was also employed in the manufacture of artillery, as well as thin sheets of iron rolled together; and guns made of leather, and coiled rope, over a cylinder of copper or gun metal, were also introduced, and continued in use for a considerable time. Guns also appear to have been made of wood. ~Rope mortar at Venice.~ In the arsenal at Venice there is an ancient mortar, constructed of leather and rope, used in the siege of the island of Chioggia, near Venice, against the Genoese, 1380. The shot is of stone, 14in. in diameter. ~Cannon of paper.~ It has been heard recently, that the Chinese constructed their cannon of prepared paper, lined with copper. ~Field cannon to keep up with army, 1380.~ As early as 1380 it is said the French were able to procure for the invasion of Italy, a great number of brass cannon, mounted on carriages, and drawn by horses, instead of oxen; these pieces threw balls of from 40lbs. to 60lbs. in weight and could always keep pace with the army. (Plate 18, fig. 1, 3, and 4.) ~Large cannon 1400.~ A cannon taken at the siege of Dien in 1546, by John de Castro, and now in Lisbon, is 20 feet 7in. in length, 6 feet 3in. in diameter in the middle, and threw a ball of 100lbs. A Hindostani inscription on it states that it was cast in 1400. ~Bolts and quarrels shot, 1413.~ ~Red-hot iron balls used at Cherbourg, 1418.~ ~Slow to discharge.~