[527] Average price, 1371-80. Rogers’ “Hist. of Agriculture and Prices,” i. 484. [528] 90.5 per cent. copper and 9.5 per cent. tin; copper at 2s. 34d. per lb. (average, 1303-53); tin at 3.41d. per lb. (average, 1371-80). Mr. Rogers notices the rareness of copper, 1350-1400. Ib., i. 484; ii. 531. The bronze of an Egyptian mirror, _cir._ 1750 B.C., was found by M. Berthelot to consist of 91 per cent. copper and 9 per cent. tin.—_Introd. Alchimistes Grecs_, p. 221. [529] Ib., i. 605 (average, 1371-80). There is some little uncertainty about the exact price of lead owing to the “fother” having three meanings. “In the Book of Rates it is said to be two thousand pound-weight; at the mines it is twenty-two hundred and a half; and among the Plummers at London, nineteen hundred and a half.” “The New World of Words,” 6th ed., by E. Phillips, London, 1706. I have taken the 2000 lbs. of the Book of Rates. [530] There was no cast-iron in the fourteenth century. [531] I have taken the proportions for bronze as given for shell by G. della Valle in his _Vallo_, Venice, 1521: 75 per cent. copper and 25 per cent. tin, which had a sp. gr. of 8.4 and cost 2.6d. per lb. [532] This gives a sp. gr. of 3.1, and shows that the stone was probably limestone, although Nye objects to “freestone” for shot and recommends “marble, pibble stones, and hard blew stones,” p. 58. “Pibbilston” is found in Wiclif´s Bible, Prov. xx. 17, _cir._ 1383. [533] Limestone sold in 1664 at 3s. 6d. a ton; Rogers, v. 508. But the wages of a gunstone-maker in Queen Elizabeth’s reign were 6d. a day, or about 3s. 6d. of our money. Brackenbury, v. 2 _n._. [534] See p. 185. [535] The early gunners suffered terribly from the bursting of their guns. James II. of Scotland was killed in 1460 by the bursting of a gun, and a bombard burst near Paris in 1479, killing fourteen men, and wounding fifteen or sixteen. _Libre de Faits_, Jean de Troyes, ed. Bouchon, p. 340. The Emperor Babar tells us of a gun that burst in India in 1527-8, killing eight men. Elliott’s “Hist. of India,” iv. 272. And so on. [536] Brackenbury, v. 30. [537] Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Script._, xvii., col. 558. [538] R. Norton, “The Gunner,” &c., London, 1628, p. 158. [539] _Entwickelung des Kriegswesens_, Breslau, 1886, iii. 266. [540] _Quellen zur Geschichte des Feuerwaffen_, 1872, A, viii., xix. [541] Ducas, _Hist. Byzant._, Bonn, 1831, p. 211. [542] Sabellicus, _Hist. Venet._, Dec. iii., lib. 10 (Jähns). [543] Clarendon’s “Hist. of the Great Rebellion,” p. 522. Boillot calls orgues “barriquades,” _Modelles Artifices de feu_, &c., Chaumont, 1598, p. 189. [544] See Admiralty survey of Gibraltar, by Capt. Aldrich, R.N. [545] “Die Granate vor dem Stück crepirt ... wodurch ein Artillerist das Leben verloren habe.” _Neues militärisches Hannovranisches Journal_, Stück iv., p. 225, kindly communicated to me by Major W. Balck, German General Staff. Apparently by an eye-witness.