A bibliography of English military books up to 1642 and of ...

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• o^45* ^3 said to give the greatest range. But even if this passage is aAually
Regiomontanus', and not, as some think, Santbech's, it does not interfere
with Tartaglia's claim, which is not so much to the discovery of the correct
elevation to give to a piece as to that of the instrument for determining that
elevation. By means of lines, Tartaglia shows the diameters of various
cannon-balls then in use. In measuring these according to our present
standard, one must not omit to take into account various accidental
Many of his theories strike us
circumstances,
such as the shrinkage of paper, etc'
now, of course, as ludicrous, as, for instance, one in Coll. IV., which is, that
if two consecutive shots are fired from a piece, the second will travel further
than the first, because " it doth find the air not only wholly stirred with the
pellet of the first shot, but also much tending or going towards the place to
which it is shot." He tells an absurd story of " how a piece that had been
oft-times charged and discharged, drew into its concavity a little dog j which
by chance did in going by, smell the mouth of it."
[V. Orig. 660.]
39. Fifteen-eighty-eight. Lucar, Cyprian.
A Treatise
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Named Lucar Appendix
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V. Tartaglia, Nicholas, No. 38.
. . .
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40. Fifteen-eighty-eight.
The martiall shewes of horsemen before her maiestie at
Sain