In the earliest days cannon were made of the rudest materials,—of wood, leather, iron bars, and hoops; but as time went on guns of superior construction were imported from France and Holland. The first mention of the casting in England of "great brass cannon and culverins" is in the year 1521, when one John Owen began to make them, "the first Englishman that ever made that kind of Artillery in England." The first iron guns cast in this country were made by three foreigners at Buckstead in Sussex, in the year 1543. In this same year, the first shells were cast, for mortars of eleven inches calibre, described as "certain hollow shot of cast iron, to be stuffed with fireworks, whereof the bigger sort had screws of iron to receive a match, and carry fire to break in small pieces the same hollow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting a man would kill or spoil him." The following table[2] gives the names, weights, and charges of the guns which were in general use in the year 1574. There were, in addition to these, guns called Curtals or Curtaux, Demicurtaux, and Bombards:— ──────────────────┬───────┬─────────┬───────┬─────────┬───────┬─────── NAMES. │Weight.│Diameter.│Weight │Scores of│Charge │Height │ │ │ of │Carriage.│ of │ of │ │ │ Shot. │ │Powder.│Bullet. ──────────────────┼───────┼─────────┼───────┼─────────┼───────┼─────── │ lbs. │ inches. │ lbs. │ │ lbs. │inches. 1. Robinet │ 200│ 1¼│ 1│ ..│ ½│ 1 2. Falconett │ 500│ 2│ 2│ 14│ 2│ 1¼ 3. Falcon │ 800│ 2½│ 2½│ 16│ 2½│ 2¼ 4. Minion │ 1100│ 3¼│ 4½│ 17│ 4½│ 3 5. Sacre │ 1500│ 3½│ 5│ 18│ 5│ 3¼ 6. Demi-culverin │ 3000│ 4½│ 9│ 20│ 9│ 4 7. Culverin │ 4000│ 5½│ 18│ 25│ 18│ 5¼ 8. Demi-cannon │ 6000│ 6½│ 30│ 38│ 28│ 6¼ 9. Cannon │ 7000│ 8│ 60│ 20│ 44│ 7¾ 10. E. Cannon │ 8000│ 7│ 42│ 20│ 20│ 6¾ 11. Basilisk │ 9000│ 8¾│ 60│ 21│ 60│ 8¼ ──────────────────┴───────┴─────────┴───────┴─────────┴───────┴───────