Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 304, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1914 — As to Age of Gunpowder. [ARTICLE]

As to Age of Gunpowder.

Comparison of the terms used by Sir Francis Bacon to describe the effects of explosive powder in three different places shows that he was writing of the same powder. Now his letter on the “Secret Works of Nature” would appear to have been written to William of Auvergne, archbishop of Paris, who died in 1248 or 1249. It seems, then, that the explosive properties of black powder were known in France and England before the middle of the thirteenth century.