Jorgensen," and the "Mauser," and the crack of these is heard around the world. Modern rifles are rendered more deadly by the fact that they can be loaded and fired in a recumbent position, and with smokeless powder, by which the soldier and his location remain concealed from his foe.

The recoil of the gun in both large and small arms is now utilised to expel the fired cartridge shell, and to withdraw a fresh one from its magazine and place it in position in the chamber. Compressed air and explosive gases have been used for the same purpose. A small electric battery has been placed in the stock to explode the cartridge when the trigger is pulled.

Sporting guns have kept pace with other small arms in improvements, and among modern forms are those which discharge in alternative succession the two barrels by a single trigger. Revolvers have been improved and the Smith and Wesson is known throughout the world.

The idea of Machine Guns, or Mitrailleuses, was not a new one, as we have seen from Puckle's celebrated patent of 1718. Also history mentions a gun composed of four breech-loading tubes of small calibre, placed on a two-wheeled cart used in Flanders as early as 1347, and of four-tubed guns used by the Scotch during the civil war in 1644. The machine gun invented by Dr. Gatling of the United States during the Civil War and subsequently perfected, has become a part of the armament of every civilised nation. The object of the gun is to combine in one piece the destructive effect of a great many, and to throw a continuous hail of projectiles. The gun is mounted on a tripod; the cartridges are contained in a hopper mounted on the breech of the gun and are fed from locks into the barrels (which are usually

five or ten in number) as the locks and barrels are revolved by a hand crank. As the handle is turned the cartridges are first given a forward motion, which thrusts them into the barrels, closes the breech and fires the cartridges in succession, and then a backward motion which extracts the empty shells. The gun weighs one hundred pounds and firing may be kept up with a ten-barreled gun at one thousand shots a minute.

The Hotchkiss revolving cannon is another celebrated American production named from its inventor, and constructed to throw heavier projectiles than the Gatling. It also has revolving barrels and great solidity in the breech mechanism. It has been found to be of great service in resisting the attacks of torpedo boats. It is adapted to fire longrange shells with great rapidity and powerful effect, and is exceedingly efficient in defence of ditches and entrenchments.

Explosives.-The desire to make the most effective explosives for gunnery led to their invention not only for that purpose but for the more peaceful pursuit of blasting. Gun Cotton, that mixture of nitric acid and cotton, made by Schönbein in 1846, and experimented with for a long time as a substitute for gunpowder in cannon and small arms and finally discarded for that purpose, is now being again revived, but used chiefly for blasting. This was followed by the discovery of nitro-glycerine, a still more powerful explosive agent-too powerful and uncontrollable for guns as originally made. They did not supersede gunpowder, but smokeless powders have come, containing nitro-cellulose, or nitro-glycerine rendered plastic, coherent and homogeneous, and converted into rods or grains of free running powder, to aid the

breech-loaders and magazine guns, while the high explosives, gun-cotton, nitro-glycerine, dynamite, dualine, etc, have become the favorite agencies for those fearful offensive and defensive weapons, the Torpedoes. From about the time of the discovery of gunpowder, stationary and floating chambers and mines of powder, to be discharged in early times by fuses (later by percussion or electricity), have existed, but modern inventions have rendered them of more fearful importance than was ever dreamed of before this century. The latest invention in this class is the submarine torpedo boat, which, moving rapidly towards an enemy's vessel, suddenly disappears from sight beneath the water, and strikes the vessel at its lowest or most vulnerable point.

To the inquiry as to whether all this vast array of modern implements of destruction is to lessen the destruction of human life, shorten war, mitigate its horrors and tend toward peace, there can be but one answer. All these desirable results have been accomplished whenever the new inventions of importance have been used. "Warlike Tribes" have been put to flight so easily by civilised armies in modern times that such tribes have been doubted as possessing their boasted or even natural courage. Nations with a glorious past as to bravery but with a poor armament have gone down suddenly before smaller forces armed with modern ordnance. The results would have been reversed, and the derision would have proceeded from the other side, if the conditions had been reversed, and those tribes and brave peoples been armed with the best weapons and the knowledge of their use. The courage of the majority of men on the battle-field is begot of confidence and enthusiasm, but this confidence and enthusiasm, however great

the cause, soon fail, and discretion becomes the better part of valour, if men find that their weapons are weak and useless against vastly superior arms of the enemy. The slaughter and destruction in a few hours with modern weapons may not be more terrible than could be inflicted with the old arms by far greater forces at close quarters in a greater length of time in the past, but the end comes sooner; and the prolongation of the struggle with renewed sacrifices of life, and the long continued and exhausting campaigns, giving rise to diseases more destructive than shot or shell, are thereby greatly lessened, if not altogether avoided.

CHAPTER XVII.

PAPER AND PRINTING.

Paper-making.-"The art preservative of all arts" -itself must have means of preservation, and hence the art of paper-making precedes the art of printing.

It was Pliny who wrote, at the beginning of the Christian era, that "All the usages of civilised life depend in a remarkable degree upon the employment of paper. At all events the remembrance of past events."

Naturally to the Chinese, the Hindoo, and the Egyptian, we go with inquiries as to origin, and find that as to both arts they were making the most delicate paper from wood and vegetable fibres and printing with great nicety, long before Europeans had even learned to use papyrus or parchment, or had conceived the idea of type.

So far as we know the wasp alone preceded the ancient Orientals in the making of paper. Its gray shingled house made in layers, worked up into paper by a master hand from decayed wood, pulped, and glutinised, waterproofed, with internal tiers of chambers, a fortress, a home, and an airy habitation, is still beyond the power of human invention to reproduce.

Papyrus-the paper of the Egyptians: Not only their paper, but its pith one of their articles of food, and its outer portions material for paper, boxes, baskets, boats, mats, medicines, cloths and other articles of merchandise: