John Napier

Abstract

The Scotchman Napier was known to his contemporaries for his work in theology and in mathematics. He was active in his inventions or projected inventions for use in warfare, writing of burning glasses, "devises of sayling under water," and artillery that would "clear a field of four miles in circumference of all the living creatures exceeding a foot in height." His neighbors reported that he practised black magic, and they told of a coal black rooster that was his similar spirit.