Concerning Mines And Underground Arrangements Which Cause Impregnable Fortresses To Fall In Ruins By Means Of Fire, When Ordnance Cannot Be Taken There In Any Other Way.

OF no less importance nor less terrifying to consider than the marvelous effects of guns are those produced with fire by powder in underground mines. These are truly not only similar to fearful natural earthquakes, but it can perhaps be said that these made by art surpass the wrath of the earth with greater effect. For if the latter shakes it happens that it causes the things on the surface to shake and sometimes to fall into ruins, but the former not only shakes but always functions and destroys-surely a marvelous effect which is almost incomprehensible, and if experience did not demonstrate it, it could scarcely be believed. Who would say that the mountains, things of such great hardness, would yield to men, easily opening their bowels? Likewise, one who had not seen it would say that it was impossible for men to have a way of administering at will fearful and destructive thunderbolts which are of such a kind that, although men make them, they cannot protect themselves against them; indeed they cannot call themselves safe from the evilness of gunpowder even in mountains composed of very hard stones or in budded structures. For, as is seen, there is no seemingly impregnable fortress that does not yield when guns are brought near it. If it happens, indeed, that guns can- not be brought near to some place because of the harshness of the site,