The earliest artillery was breech-loading and called bombards, and some of these, towards the end of the century (the fourteenth), were capable of throwing two hundredweight shot, describing a parabolic curve of a radius of only three hundred yards, showing that the powder must have been very weak. In 1388, a stone shot, weighing 195 pounds, was discharged from a bombard called the “Trevisan.”[51] Drawings of these engines may be seen in MSS. 851 and 852 in the Nat. Lib., Paris. One is on a flat wooden stand, the other on a low platform with small solid wheels. Fig. 50 exhibits one of these weapons. These guns, at first without trunnions, were made of bars of wrought iron, in overlapping coils or sections, welded together on a mandrel, and then hooped--in fact, similar in principle to the “Armstrong” gun. There is a breech-block in which the charge was previously laid, and fitted into the body of the piece by means of a wedge, but no apparent arrangement for sustaining the recoil. The Scottish cannon, “Mons Meg,” is forged in this fashion, and a rent near the breech is instructive in laying bare the system of construction. It is of fifteenth century date, and is said to have been wrought at Mons in Flanders, but there is no evidence of this being the case--indeed, it was probably made in Scotland about the middle of the century. The calibre is 20 inches, and length 13 feet 6 inches. The projectiles used were stone shot, weighing 330 lb. The powder-chamber is less in diameter than the barrel. Culverins were long pieces, whose projectiles were usually of lead. Bronze bombards were made by Aran of Augsburg as early as 1378; but it was considerably later before these pieces began to be cast in iron. A very early iron specimen may be seen in the Rotunda collection at Woolwich. Breech-loading cannon were pieces of small calibre, and were followed by those constructed on the movable chamber system, and after that by muzzle-loaders. There is an interesting piece preserved at the Artillery Museum, St. Petersburg, dating from the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century; it is strengthened with coils: also some good fifteenth century specimens. To judge from the quantity of old arms of all sorts found in Belgium, that country must have been as much the cockpit of Europe during the middle ages as it was in much more recent times. At the Porte de Hal Museum at Brussels are pieces of artillery of the fifteenth century, including some very early examples of considerable interest, and among these is a breech-loading cannon, mounted on a carriage with wooden wheels which are encircled by studded iron hoops. The weapon is of wrought iron, clasped round with thick iron coils--length, 0.74. There is another of similar construction and date--calibre, 0.135; length, 0.77. The carriages have been reconstructed. A bombardelle, the calibre of which is 0.13, and length, 1.30.