TANKS IN 1596.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VIII, Issue 52, 13 February 1918, Page 7

TANKS IN 1596.

A SCOTSMAN’S INVENTION

In our recent exhibition of aircraft, held in many great towns both in England and Scotland (says “Scrobie,” writing in the “Tifties”) full acknowledgment was given to the great genius of Laonarda da Vinci, as being the first to anticipate man’s mastery of the air. Should the tanks also be on tour in the future, I put in a claim that one great Scotsman, John Napier, of Merchiston, inventor of logarithms, should be remembered as foreseeing and describing these might}- monsters. In a memorandum dated 1596. which he calls his secret inventions.” he describes four inventions. They probably owed, their existence in his fertile imagination tn the rumours of war current at tht time, and were to be used in defence of his country should the Spanish Armada invade the coast of Scotland. I am only recalling one of them, in which the living presentment of our modern tank is clearly foreshadowed. These are the words in which Napier describes it:—“A round chariot of mettle made of the proofs of dooble muskett. The use hereof serveth to break the array of the enemies’ battle. as also it serveth to destroy the environed enemies by continual charge and shott through small hoalies. The enemie in the meantime being abased and altogether nncertane what defence or pursuit to use against a moving mouth of mettle.”