Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: cperlebe@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM (Chris Perleberg)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Battle effectiveness of 18th c. smoothbore weapons
Message-ID: <12059@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 7 Dec 89 04:16:39 GMT
References: <11862@cbnews.ATT.COM> <11911@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: NCR Corporation Wichita, KS
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: cperlebe@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM (Chris Perleberg)

In article <11911@cbnews.ATT.COM> rbeville%tekig5.pen.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Bob Beville) writes:
>	Roger Bacon devised a workable gunpowder formula in 1248, but
>	chose to hide the formula in a cryptagram.

Now, this is positively uncanny.  A friend of mine today returned a book he
borrowed from me months ago, The Codebreakers.  It's a fascinating book, 
which I would recommend to anybody interested in cryptogaphy.  Anyway, just
after reading this message on the group, I opened the book, and it came open
to page 889:

"A British Artillery colonel, H. W. L. Hine, has `deciphered` a text
proving that Roger Bacon invented gunpowder; unfortunately, while the most
important letters of this text appear in the printed version through some
errors, they do not exist in the original manuscript."

I mean, what are the odds?  

Chris Perleberg
cperlebe@encad.wichita.ncr.com