Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1917 — Father of “Tanks.” [ARTICLE]

Father of “Tanks.”

Patriotic Scotsmen might plausibly claim that the real inventor of “tanks” was John "Napier of Merchiston, who also invented logarithms. He had many varied intellectual activities besides the higher mathematics, and was a zealous protagonist of Protestantism. For confounding all “enemies of God’s truth" he confided to Bacon’s elder brother certain “secret inventions,” These included a chariot of metal, double musket-proof, the motion of which was controlled by those within, “who discharged shot through small holes, the enemy being abased, and uncertain what defeat to make, against a moving mouth of metal.” This looks like the original “tank,” but Napier directed the detailed designs for hfs weird Instruments of war to be kept secret until necessity compelled their use.