ARMS, or weapons of offense, may be divided into two great classes—those that act by means of gunpowder, and those that do not. Of arms that act otherwise than by explosion, the greater part have been in use from the earliest times; they include the bow and arrow, sling, pike, spear, lance, dart, javelin, dagger, axe, mace, spiked or knotted club, scythe for chariots, dirk, bayonet, sword, cutlass, etc., together with such artillery as the ballista, catapulta, and battering-ram. Weapons depending on the use of gunpowder are of two kinds—those that can be held in the hand, and those that are too heavy to be portable. In the first class, we find the names of the hand-cannon, hand• gun, arquebus, haquebuts, demi-haque, matchlock, wheel-lock, firelock, currier, snap haunce, caliver, esclopette, petronel, dragon, band-mortar, dag, tricker-lock, carbine, fusil, fowlingpiece, blunderbuss, pistol, musket or musquet, musketoon, rifle, etc. In the second class, more usually included under the name of artillery, we find the springel, war-wolf, bombard, cart-of-war, culverin, demi culverin, serpentine, falcon, saker, can non, howitzer, petard, cannonade, morter, rifled cannon, war-rockets, etc. The more
important of these are briefly noticed under the proper headings. It is needless, perhaps, to add that nine tenths of these are utterly obsolete.
The surveyor-gen. of the ordnance in the British army has the duty of providing and keeping efficient the arms in use by the regular and auxiliary forces, and of maintaining an ample reserve in the royal arsenals. Each regiment makes a report on these subjects yearly. If the commanding officer of a regiment ascertains that a new supply of arms is needed for the men under him, or a supply of anything in relation to the arms, he indents upon the controller of the district for the supply required; which is forthwith made by that officer, subject, however, to a pecuniary fine upon the regiment, if the arms have not lasted a fair time.