“Cette sorte de boulet, que nous avons vû ajoûter aux grenades, aux pots à feu, &c. ... fut, dit on, inventée un peu devant le siége de Wachtendonck par un artisan de Venloo.... Je sais que quelqu’un (_i.e._ Reyd) a ecrit qu’une pareille expérience avait été faite a Berg-op-Zoom ... avec un pareil succès par un Italien deserteur des troupes d’Espagne. Au reste, le Comte Mansfeld se servit de cette machine qui fut inventée à Venloo et faisoit dans Wachtendonck une déstruction des maisons et des hommes aussi inévitable qu’elle étoit inopinée.” These passages possess at least one quality of good evidence—they differ about details and agree on the main points; and it is difficult to see how they can be gainsaid or overlooked. We may take it, then, until further evidence (which may possibly exist) is produced, that explosive shell were first used in large numbers and with good effect in 1588. CHAPTER XV IGNITERS Charges of incendiaries and explosives confined in guns, shells, mines, &c., are not fired directly: for convenience and safety they are ignited by means of some intermediate agent, or agents, such as priming powder, fuzes, &c., which are themselves in turn ignited by some other agents. These collective agents are here called Igniters. _Hot Wires, Priming Powder, Matches, and Portfires._ The small early guns, whose recoil was insignificant, seem to have been fired directly by thrusting a hot wire into the powder through the vent.[584] When guns grew bigger, this method had to be abandoned and priming powder came into use.[585] For centuries priming powder consisted of serpentine, or some slow-burning mixture, which was at first laid in a train from some convenient spot to the vent, and was afterwards simply poured on the vent. The advantage of the former proceeding, in securing the safety of the gunners, is pointed out in a very old French book:—“vous pourrez retirer affin que vostre baston (_gun_) ne vous face dommage.”[586] In the latter case, the priming was ignited in various ways:—by a hot wire; by a match fixed in a lint-stock, which was “a staffe of a yard or two yards long;”[587] and later by a portfire attached to a portfire-stick.[588] The objection to priming powder was its liability to be wetted by rain, or blown away by wind.[589] TABLE XII. _Matches._