The culverin of Nancy, made in 1598, was more than twenty-three feet in length.

There is now an ancient cannon in the arsenal at Metz of about this length, which carries a ball of one hundred and forty pounds.

Cannon balls were found at Paris as late as 1712, weighing near two hundred pounds, and from twelve to sixteen inches in diameter.

At the siege of Constantinople in 1453, there was a famous metallic bombard which threw stone balls of an incredible size; at the siege of Bourges in 1412, a cannon was used which, it was said, threw stone balls "of the size of mill-stones." The Gantois, under Arteville, made a bombard fifty feet in length, whose report was heard at a distance of ten leagues! The first cannon were made of wood, and covered with sheet-iron, or embraced by iron rings: longitudinal bars of iron were afterwards substituted for the wooden form.

Towards the end of the fourteenth century, brass, tin, copper, wrought and cast iron, were successively used for this purpose.