_The First Fire-Arms._—The first fire-arms, or guns, as we now call them, are said to have been rude cannon, formed by banding together flat iron bars, something on the plan of our wooden casks or barrels of to-day. These guns were fired with a “slow match,” the gunners retiring to a safe distance while the match was burning to the priming. Their earliest use was as engines of war. The writers of ancient history tell us that they were so employed by the Moors at the noted siege of Algesiras, Spain, in 1341, and at the battle of Calais, in 1346. At the latter battle, Edward III is credited with having had four pieces, which made him victorious. _Earliest Hand-Guns._—It is claimed by Spanish historians that to Spain belongs the honor of having been the first power to furnish her soldiers with fire-arms so small that they could be transported by a single person. They were unwieldy affairs at the beginning, however; really small cannon lashed upon wooden scantlings. The soldier could not fire his piece off-hand, but was forced to carry a “rest” with him wherever he went. Being ready to discharge his arm he balanced it upon the rest, steadied it by holding the scantling under his arm, and then “touched it off” with a live coal of fire, while he sighted along the barrel to take aim at his object. What happened immediately after the coal came in contact with the powder the historian saith not, but a modern writer, who has been examining one of these old guns in a museum, jumps to the conclusion that the soldier, with the scantling under his arm, must have been launched suddenly into an impressive dream of first-class earthquakes, or something else “like unto the combined kicking of about fifty mules.” _Prejudice Against Fire-Arms._—For about two centuries after the invention of hand fire-arms they were so inefficient that the cross-bow, then in general use, was able to quite successfully hold its own against them. It was not until 1596 that Queen Elizabeth, by a proclamation, directed that cross and other bows used in the army should be discarded entirely in favor of muskets. And thereat there arose much murmuring of dissatisfaction throughout the English Empire, according to Michael Montaigne, a most prominent man of his time, who narrates the fact, and adds: “Except the noise in our ears, to which we will be henceforth accustomed, I think the fire-arm is one of very little effect, and I hope that we shall one day give up its use.” Could he return to earth at this age, and see the wonderful fire arms that have developed from the humble beginning of which he was then treating, he would speedily lose his hope to the effect that one day its use would be entirely given up.