GUNS, GUN LOCKS, BARRELS, &C. 288
M. de Strozzi, under Charles XI . What credit is dueto him we pretend not to determine.
The lock is said to have been invented in the city ofNuremberg, in Germany , about 1517, as many bear testi-mony ; but that cannot be considered of the lock in itspresent improved state. Besides, the fire-lock is commonlyknown by the name of the French lock, even in Germany ;which certainly militates against the previous assertion, theone giving the name, perhaps, to the other. Beckmann,still sticking for the honour of the invention for his countrymen,afterwards asserts that though the lock might have beeninvented in Germany , he conceives the improvements of itmight have been subsequently made in France .
The same author says, “ In the History of the Brunswickmilitary, it is stated that the soldiers of that duchy firstobtained, in 1687, flint-locks instead of match-locks. Itlas often been asserted,” he continues, “ that fire-tubes,which took fire of themselves, were forbidden first in Bo-hemia and Moravia , and afterwards in the whole Germanempire, under a severe penalty, by the Emperor Maxi-milian I. ; but I have not found any allusion to this cir-cumstance in the different police law.s of that Emperor .”
That the first tire-stones were pyrites, appears fromvarious sources : see the second part of Samlung der Reich-sabschiede, Frankfort on the Maine , 1747. fol. ; and after-wards a vitreous kind of stone was introduced in its stead;this circumstance, is said, to have produced some kind ofconfusion: instances are said to be produced by Henkel, sothat many applied to that stone what was related by theGermans of antiquity as concerning pyrites. In the greaterpart of Europe , people use at present that hornstein / calledby Wallerius, si I ex igniarius, and by Linnccus, si/ex cre-taceus. In Germany , it is said, it was originally fins orvlins, which latter word is thought most proper; in Sweden ,Denmark , and England, its name is Jlinta and flint. Thisappellation is of great antiquity. The Wends had a pagandeity of that name, whose statue was anciently, by northernnations, erected upon a stone called fignstein.
2 Not every where, for it appears, that in Tyrol, the hardest ferruginousgranite, consisting of corneous, partly irregular and in part polyhedral pieces, isemployed lor the same ptirpo.se as Hints arc in Englaud and Germany , and whichare from thence called Tyro! flints. Jasper, ground sharp, is employed for thesame purpose in Turkey.