BALL (011G. Latta, Ger. Ball, Fr. bane; cf. Eng. bale, a round pack). The ball was to the primitive man not an implement of sport, but an absolute necessity of existence. The first were stones rounded by the action of tide or enrrent, and man used them with a sling to crush in the forehead of the beasts upon whom he fed. Specimens of the Bos privrigenius so slain have been exhumed from ancient bogs. The slaying of Goliath by David will immediately come to mind as an instance in which the stone ball from the brook •aS used as a weapon of offense. Hannibal's Balearic stingers. in the second Punic \Var, demoralized the Roman infantry by the terrible execution they did while yet at a distance and out of sight. The sling remained a part of the equipment of the English Army until the Fifteenth Century. The South Americans had a modification of the sling in their bolo. They attached a ball to each end of a thong, with another in the centre to hold by and get the necessary impetus. These were thrown and twirled round the legs of a distant and fleeing animal, bringing it to earth.
As an aid to outdoor activities and sports the ball claims a venerable antiquity. Thus, one of the most beautiful episodes in the Odyssey is the description of Nausieaa and her maidens, in which, as rendered by Pope,— The ball games of the Greeks came to be much valued as a means of giving grace and elasticity to the figure, and in the special rooms provided for them in the gymnasiums they were played almost daily by persons of all ages and ranks. A teacher (pilierepas) was in attendance, and certain rules and gradations of the exercise were observed, according to the physical condition of the player. The Romans also practiced ball playing in connection with their baths, but it never assumed the importance attached to it by the Greeks. Of the various kinds of balls used by them, the commonest were the pita, a handball stuffed with hair, and the follis, large. inflated ski • like a football. There were several recognize games, vaguely resembling handball and foG '1; and in the Byzantine period a game distinctly similar to the modern polo was played on :•orsebaek by the nobles.
Ball-playing seems to have been of great an tiquity in the west of Europe also. In the Six teenth Century it was in great favor in the courts of princes, especially in Italy and France. Houses were built for playing in all weathers, and in gardens long alleys were laid out for the purpose, the names of which still adhere to many localities. Thus, one of the most famous
streets in London takes its name from the Ital ian laina, a hall, and maglia, a mallet—the game thus denoted being described in IIlount's Glossographia (1(150): "Vale-maille: a game wherein a round howl is with a mallet struck through a high arch of iron (standing at either end of an alley), which he that can do at the fewest blows, or at the number agreed on, wins. This game was hereto fore used in the long alley, near Saint James's, and vulgarly called pell-mell." From the jeu-de-paume of the Middle Ages came the modern tennis, racquets, and lawn ten nis. The origin of football is equally remote. It has been discovered in regions as far apart as the Fame Islands in the north, New Zealand in the south, and the Philippines in the tropics. A peculiar kind of game with an inflated ball was played by the Indians of the Amazon; they threw it in the air, and shot at it from opposite directions with blunt arrows. The game of lacrosse originated with the North American In dians. and evidently could have had no connec tion with the Oriental games, though it is not unlike them in several respects. But in all these -questions of origins, the historical data are so meagre and the modifying influences of various games upon one another have been so general, that the true history of few games can he com pletely told. Besides the many famous games of universal acceptance in which the ball is the prime factor, there are many less known sports, popular in certain localities, which are in the same way dependent upon it. The Frenchmen play the game of the hammer, hitting a ball along the highways; the Italians play pallone, by striking the ball with a rubber easing worn over the hand. The Spaniards are devoted to their fronton, which is akin to handball. Even the Eskimos have their ball-game to away the tedium of the long winter; and mar bles are too universal to be restricted to any locality or period. See BASEBALL; FOOTBALL; TENNIS; BASKET BALL.
BALL. .Ammunition for fire-arms or ord nance. Before the era of hollow or elongated shells and bullets, all projectiles were solid and spherical. The term ball ammunition or ball cartridge, however, is still used as a distinction from blank ammunition. In military pyro techny, 'balls' in many varieties arc used, either to give light. produce dense smoke, or ditruie snffocating odors. In these latter respects, how ever, they ate, under modern conditions, rarely if ever used. See AMMUNITION; ORDNANCE; and PROJECTILES.