Gunpowder by Jack Kelly

Continuing Kelly's Gunpowder. Nothing earthshattering, but decent reading. Kelly says da Vinci invented the wheel-lock - magazine article, in Scientific American as I recall, a few years before the publication of this book (2004), says nobody knows but it was probably not Leonardo. Kelly says earliest known personal firearm dates to ~twelve hundred something - I recall word of another article, about a handgonne, or what might be called one, discovered in China a couple-few years ago and dated to 900AD. But no whopping errors yet. He does give methods for making, including the harvesting of saltpeter (ick - I'll buy mine at the corner drugstore, thanks). Not obviously hostile to the Culture - pg. 77:

The wheellock was only one way gunpowder's impact was beginning to be felt on and off the battlefield. By putting a new form of lethal power into the hands of commoners, gunpowder was among the elements that fertilized the long slow growth of feelings of rights and entitlements that would blossom into democracy. The idea of the individual firearm as an "equalizer," was not entirely fanciful. Gunpowder, as Thomas Carlyle would write in a later century, makes "all men tall."

503 - Wednesday, 2 June 2004:

Kelly's Gunpowder meshes with Stephenson's Baroque Cycle! Some of the Natural Philosophers in Stephenson's story had, in real life, critical roles in the development of the Scientific Method, which was significantly driven by the development and study of gunpowder. Kelly and Stephenson even recount some of the same experiments.

504 - Thursday, 3 June 2004:

In Gunpowder, Kelly recounts as fact the tale of Sam Colt whittling a prototype revolver from wood while a cabin boy on a sailing ship - eh. Hmm, blasting cap patented 1864, stick dynamite 1867, both by Alfred Nobel - remember that next time you watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Finished up, not a bad read.

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