TANKS IN 1596.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14642, 21 February 1918, Page 3

TANKS IN 1596.

A SCOTSMAN'S LWENTION

In our recent exhibition of aircraft, held m many great towns both in England and Scotland (says "Scrobie,"writing in "The Times'^' full acknowledgment was given to the great 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 Merchistor, inventor of logarithms—should be remembered as foreseeing and describing these mighty 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 to the rumours of. Avar current at. that time, and wore to bo used in defence of his country should the Spanish Armada invade the coast of Scotland. 1 am only recalling, o^e of them, in which the living presentiment of oiir modern tank is clearly foreshadowed. These are the words in which Napier describes it: "A round chariot of mettle, made of the proofs of double muskett.. The use hereof_serveth to break the array of the enemies' battle, so also it serveth to destroy the environed enemies by contmuall ' charge and shott through ■small hoalles. The en-jmie in the meantime being abased, and altogether unuertane wttat defence or pursuit' to use against a moving mouth of mettle."