About 1890 experiments made by the United States government at Annapolis showed that a plate made of an alloy of steel and nickel is far superior to the simple steel. More recently, the resisting power of steel armor-plate has been increased 25 per cent, by the process invented by Harvey, an American. This consists in face-hardening the plates, by causing the outer layers of the metal to take up a greater percentage of carbon. The Krupp firm of Essen, Germany, discovered a new process, which is kept secret, for hardening both steel and nickel-steel plates, by which a product of unexcelled quality is turned out. Its resistance is 20 per cent, greater than that of harveyized steel. One foot of the best armor made to-day has more endurance than two feet of the best armor in 1880. It is said that the principal armor-plate makers of America, England, and France are now using this process, under agreement with Krupp. The steel is subjected, while hot, to hydraulic forging. This renders the whole mass more homogeneous than old methods, making it stronger and freer from flaws. It is next sawed or planed into plates of the required size, and then harveyized by cementation, hardening and tempering. Krupp's process carries the hardening deeper into the plate, because chrome, probably, as well as nickel is used in the steel. Hardening the steel increases the brittleness and the liability of the plate to crack, but its back remains extremely tough, and so the risk of cracking is lessened. Krupp plates resist ordinary projectiles better than Harvey armor does, but Harvey plates resist capped projectiles better and are not liable to crack. Krupp armor 12 inches thick withstands and smashes 12-inch shells, though dented four or six inches, but is cracked by i,8oo-lb. torpedo shells. On May 27, 1908, the 11-inch armor plate of the Florida, a United States monitor, successfully resisted 12-inch shells containing a new high explosive. The first plates used were less than five inches thick. By 1876 solid steel plates of 2 2-inch thickness had been produced. Fully 4,000 tons of armor-plate are used on the exposed sides and turrets of some modern battleships.
Ar'mour, Philip D., a Chicago merchant, head for many years of the great firm of Armour & Co., pork-packers and dealers in dressed meats and provisions, was born at Stockbridge, N. Y., May 16, 1832, and died at Chicago, January 6, 1901. The house with which he was long identified, and through the successful operations of which Mr. Armour amassed a large fortune, was founded in 1862 by Herman O. Armour, Philip D. Armour joining the Chicago concern in 1875. The volume of its business, which gave employment to more than 11,000 persons, exceeded a hundred millions a year. Much of his large income Mr. Armour gave away in private and public charities The chief object of his benevolence was the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago, which was opened in 1893, and now has 68 instructors and an enrollment of 1,800 students. Connected with this were a mission and a group of apartment buildings, rented to working-men and their families, known as the Armour fiats. Mr. Armour's enterprises included, besides the great dressed-meat factory, a grain business of large volume and ownership in a great railway system. His wealth was estimated at his death at about forty millions.
Armour, Hon. John Douglas, born county of Peterborough (Ontario), 1830, son of the Reverend Samuel Armour. Educated at Upper Canada College and Toronto University. Studied law with Chancellor Vankougnnet and was called to the bar in 1853. His progress at the bar was rapid. Appointed judge (Court of Queen's Bench), 1877. Made president of the court in 1887. Declined knighthood. One of the ablest of Canadian judges. Appointed one of His Majesty's Commissioners in the Alaska Boundary case. He died in 1903,^ England, when on a public mission.
Arms, weapons of defense. Just as the invention of powder made armor useless, so it changed the kinds of weapons used, which differentiates weapons into ancient and modern arms. Of ancient arms, the most common in the earliest wars were missiles to be used at long range. Thus, in the time of the Old Testament, the bow and the javelin were the favorite weapons of oriental races, while for close fighting merely straight daggers were used. Among the Greeks the chiefs used a long and heavy spear, which they threw as a missile, often ending their combats by a duel with short swords. The masses fought with a pike, in close column or in a phalanx, which afterward became so famous in the Macedonian phalanx with which Alexander the Great conquered the world. The pike was twenty-four feet long, held in the hand, and the men were so drawn up as to present a solid front of glittering spear-points. The Romans used a short massive javelin, six feet long, which they hurled at the enemy at a distance of ten or fifteen paces, and then closed on them with their short two-edged broadswords. They depended largely on the broadsword, and the lines were so drawn up that each man had room for full play with it in single combats, in which the training of the Romans almost always secured them the victory.
In the middle ages steel-clad cavalry were the main strength of the armies. Their arms were the lance, mace, battle-
