The “old flint-lock” was quite a modern invention, not appearing until the seventeenth century. It was a bright idea to fix a piece of flint into the cock and arrange it to strike a steel cap on the priming pan when the trigger was fired; and it superseded the old match, wheel-lock, and snap-haunce. The flint-lock was used by armies well into the nineteenth century, and is still in private use in remote localities. As the arquebus succeeded the bow and arrow, so the musket, a smooth and single-barrel muzzle-loader with a flint-lock and a wooden ramrod, succeeded the arquebus. Rifles, which were the old flint-lock muskets with their barrels provided with spiral grooves to give the bullet a rotary motion and cause it to keep one point constantly in front during its flight, is claimed as the invention of Augustin Kutler of Germany in 1520, and also of Koster of Birmingham, England, about 1620. Muskets with straight grooves are said to have been used in the fifteenth century. The rifle with a long barrel and its flint-lock was a favourite weapon of the American settler. It was made in America, and he fought the Indian wars and the war of the Revolution with it. It would not do to conclude this sketch of antique cannon and fire-arms without referring to Puckle’s celebrated English patent No. 418, of May 15, 1718, for “A Defence.” The patent starts out with the motto: “Defending King George, your Country, and Lawes, Is defending Yourselves and Protestant Cause.” It proceeds to describe a “Portable Gun or Machine” having a single barrel, with a set of removable chambers which are charged with bullets before they are placed in the gun, a handle to turn the chambers to bring each chamber in line with the barrel, a tripod on which the gun is mounted and on which it is to be turned, a screw for elevating and turning the gun in different directions, a set of square chambers “for shooting square bullets against Turks,” a set of round chambers “for shooting round bullets against the Christians;” and separate drawings show the square bullets for the Turks and the round bullets for the Christians. History is silent as to whether Mr. Puckle’s patent was put in practice, but it contained the germs of some modern inventions. Among the first inventions of the century was a very important one made by a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Forsyth, a Scotchman, who in 1803 invented the percussion principle in fire-arms. In 1807 he patented in England detonating powder and pellets which were used for artillery. About 1808 General Shrapnel of the English army invented the celebrated shell known by his name. It then consisted of a comparatively thin shell filled with bullets, having a fuse lit by the firing of the gun, and adapted to explode the shell in front of the object fired at. This fuse was superseded by one invented by General Bormann of Belgium, which greatly added to the value of case shot.