It all began through playing with fire. It was desired to throw fire on an enemy’s buildings, or his ships, and so destroy them. Burning torches were thrown by machines, made of cords and springs, over a city wall, and it became a great study to find the best burning compound with which to cover these torches. One was needed which would blaze with a great flame and was hard to put out. Hence the early chemists made all possible mixtures of pitch, resin, naphtha, sulphur, saltpeter, etc.; “Greek fire” was one of the most famous. Many of these were made in the monasteries. The monks were pretty much the only people in those days with time for study, and two of these shaven-headed scientists now had a chance to enter history. Roger Bacon was the first. One night he was working his diabolical mixture in the stone-walled laboratory, and watched, by the flickering lights, the progress of a certain interesting combination for which he had used pure instead of impure saltpeter. Suddenly there was an explosion, shattering the chemical apparatus and probably alarming the whole building. That explosion proved the new combination was not fitted for use as a thrown fire; it also showed the existence of terrible forces far beyond the power of all bow-springs, even those made of steel. Roger Bacon thus discovered what was practically gunpowder, as far back as the thirteenth century, and left writings in which he recorded mixing 11.2 parts of the saltpeter, 29.4 of charcoal, and 29 of sulphur. This was the formula developed as the result of his investigations. Berthold Schwartz, a monk of Freiburg, studied Bacon’s works and carried on dangerous experiments of his own, so that he is ranked with Bacon for the honor. He was also the first one to rouse the interest of Europe in the great discovery. [Illustration: THE “KENTUCKY RIFLE” WITH ITS FLINT-LOCK WAS ACCURATE BUT MUST BE MUZZLE-CHARGED] ~THE FIRST REAL FIRE ARMS~ And then began the first crude, clumsy efforts at gunmaking. Firearms were born. Hand bombards and culverins were among the early types. Some of these were so heavy that a forked support had to be driven into the ground, and two men were needed, one to hold and aim, the other to prime and fire. Improvements kept coming, however. Guns were lightened and bettered in shape. Somebody thought of putting a flash pan, for the powder, by the side of the touch-hole, and now it was decided to fasten the slow-match in a movable cock upon the barrel, and ignite it with a trigger. These matches were fuses of some slow-burning fiber, like tow, which would keep a spark for a considerable time. Formerly they had to be carried separately, but the new arrangement was a great convenience and made the match-lock. The cock, being curved like a snake, was called the “serpentine.”