TANKS IN 1596

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLII, Issue 11479, 6 March 1918, Page 5

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 Times) full acknowledgement was given to the genius of Leonardo 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 ofjogarithms, should be remembered as forseeing and describing these mighty monsters. In a memorandum dated 1590, which he calls his “secret inventions,” he describes four inventions. They probably owed their existence in his fertile imagination to the rumours of war current at that time, and were to be used in defence of Ins country should the Spanish Armada invade the coast of Scotland. lam only recalling one of them, in which the living presentment of our modern tank is cle»rly foreshadowed. These are the words in which Napier describes it ‘‘A round chariot of mettle made of the proofs of dooble musket. The use hereof serveth to break the array of the enemies’ battle, as also it serve to destroy the environed enemies by continuall charge and sbott through small hoalles. The enemle in the meantime being abased and alto gether uncertaiue what defence or pursuit to uso against a moving mouth of mettle.”