A History of Wonderful Inventions Author:History Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3GUNPOWDER AND GUN-COTTON. textit{at-. textit{'.. Before the invention of gunpowder, a battle-field presented a very different appearance to what it does now. There was then no h... more »eavy veil of smoke hanging over it and obscuring the banners on which the arms of the knights were emblazoned ; the dancing plume, the glittering helmet, and the dazzling array of men in armour wern on each side visible. Whether the warrior struck with his uplifted battle-axe, or made a plunge with his sharp-headed and long- shafted spear, or raising his gauntleted hand, thrust his lon^ straight double-edged sword between the bars of his opponent's vizor, he saw the point at which he aimed, and stood face to face with the enemy to whom he was opposed. Each was alike prepared to attack or defend, and no random bullet came whizzing through the clouded canopy of smoke, levelling alike the strong and the weak, the brave and the base, and rendering neither de- termined courage nor skilful defence of any avail. The thundering cannon and the death-dealing bullet laid low the plumed and knightly head of chivalry ; and the iron arm of a Cceur de Lion, that was ever foremost to hew its way into the enemy's ranks, with the ponderous battle-axe chained to its wrist, might have been shattered by the hand of the puniest peasant that trembled as it pulled the trigger, had the lion-hearted king lived when the bullet came, without a human hand to conduct it, from the muzzle of the firelock. Those single combats, which our early bards loved to celebrate in their rude martial ballads, were then at an end; the standard could no longer be seen rocking and reeling above the heads of the combatants, and telling as it rose and fell the very spot where the heart of battle beat: for gunpowder came in and sent its blackening smoke over all this s...« less