[Seascamp]

Around the year 1450 Roger Bacon of Merton College, Oxford, had completed his studies of what was then called ?serpentine? and later known as ?black powder?. At times Roger Bacon is credited as being the inventor of black powder but in reality he was researching concepts and rumor, etc. He became so horrified with his findings that he encoded his work and this wasn?t decoded until the late 1800?s. As a visionary hiding his research work he wrote: ?The common herd is unable to digest scientific facts, which it scorns and misuses to the detriment of the wise. Let not be cast, then, pearls before swine?..?
He was referring to the Nobility of Europe of the time which he had nothing but distain and contempt for.

The people of that age were more spiritual and empirical than reality based and this led to continual and massive disfigurement, maiming and death due to miss handling of serpentine. The early artillery of the time transported the three components of serpentine; charcoal, sulfur and salt peter, in separate wagons and only dry mixed the compound when the preparations were being made to fire the cannon. To do other wise inevitably led to an unwanted explosion. Later experiments with mixing the constituent parts with water or the urine from a Monk who had partaken of blessed wine and then drying the mix, acted to stabilize the serpentine so that it could at least be transported. In reality all that hocus pocus did was to act in suppressing the fumes so that an atmospheric detonation didn?t occur. But then, concepts of static electricity discharge, gaseous atmospheric detonation and the like were still four-hundred years away.

Given all this, I?d guess that the misadventures of the Gent are literally a blast to the past where ignorance, superstition and the total suppression and inability to communicate fact were the rule, not the exception. Though no authentic overall stats have ever been found it would be my guess that that a large percentage of the population that was around early gun powder were maimed and disfigured as a matter of course. So maybe the Gent is really a renaissance man or something along those lines. Who knows, as the curse of man seems to be to follow the path of stupid is as stupid does and rediscover reality over and over again.

Scamp