Armed with his bow-and-arrow, man now was lord of creation. No longer was it necessary for him to huddle with his fellows in some cave to avoid being eaten by prowling beasts. Instead he went where he would and boldly hunted the fiercest of them. In other words, his brain was beginning to tell, for though his body was still no match for the lion and the bear, he had thought out a way to conquer them. Also he was better fed with a greater variety of game. And now, free to come and go wherever he might find it, he was able to spread into various lands and so to organize the tribes and nations which at last gave us civilization and history. A new weapon now came about through warfare. Man has been a savage fighting animal through pretty much all his history, but while he tried to kill the other fellow, he objected to being killed himself. Therefore he took to wearing armor. During the Middle Ages he piled on more and more, until at last one of the knights could hardly walk, and it took a strong horse to carry him. When such a one fell, he went over with a crash like a tin-peddler’s wagon, and had to be picked up again by some of his men. Such armor would turn most of the arrows. Hence invention got at work again and produced the Crossbow and its bolt. We have already learned how the tough skin of animals brought about the bow; now we see that man’s artificial iron skin caused the invention of the crossbow. What was the Crossbow? It was the first real hand-shooting machine. It was another big step toward the day of the rifle. The idea was simple enough. Wooden bows had already been made as strong as the strongest man could pull, and they wished for still stronger ones--steel ones. How could they pull them? At first they mounted them upon a wooden frame and rested one end on the shoulder for a brace. Then they took to pressing the other end against the ground, and using both hands. Next, it was a bright idea to put a stirrup on this end, in order to hold it with the foot. Still they were not satisfied. “Stronger, stronger!” they clamored; “give us bows which will kill the enemy farther away than he can shoot at us! If we cannot set such bows with both arms let us try our backs!” So they fastened “belt-claws” to their stout girdles and tugged the bow strings into place with their back and leg muscles. Who First Discovered the Power of Gunpowder? Probably the Chinese, although all authorities do not agree. Strange, is it not, that a race still using crossbows in its army should have known of explosives long before the Christian Era, and perhaps as far back as the time of Moses? Here is a passage from their ancient Gentoo Code of Laws: “The magistrate shall not make war with any deceitful machine, or with poisoned weapons, or with cannons or guns, or any kind of firearms.” But China might as well have been Mars before the age of travel. Our civilization had to work out the problem for itself.