royal preserve, and remains
for the most part an uncultivated waste, but it is also a rich
coalfield, and there are mines in every direction. Brownhills, Burntwood
and Chase Town, Great Wyrley, Hednesford, Hammerwich, and Pelsall are
townships or villages of the mining population.

CANNON (a word common to Romance languages, from the Lat. _canna_, a
reed, tube, with the addition of the augmentative termination _-on,
-one_), a gun or piece of ordnance. The word, first found about 1400
(there is an indenture of Henry IV. 1407 referring to _"canones, seu
instrumenta Anglice gunnes vocata"_), is commonly applied to any form of
firearm which is fired from a carriage or fixed mounting, in
contradistinction to "small-arms," which are fired without a rest or
support of any kind.[1] An exception must be made, however, in the case
of _machine guns_ (q.v.), and the word as used in modern times may be
defined as follows: "a piece of ordnance mounted upon a fixed or movable
carriage and firing a projectile of greater calibre than 1-1/2 in." In
French, however, _canon_ is the term applied to the barrel of small
arms, and also, as an alternative to _mitrailleuse_ or _mitrailleur_, to
machine guns, as well as to ordnance properly so-called. The Hotchkiss
machine gun used in several navies is officially called "revolving
cannon." For details see ARTILLERY, ORDNANCE, MACHINE GUNS, &c. Amongst
the many derived senses of the word may be mentioned "cannon curls," in
which the hair is arranged in horizontal tubular curls one above the
other. For "cannon" in billiards see BILLIARDS.

In the 16th and 17th centuries the "cannon" in England was distinctively
a large piece, smaller natures of ordnance being called by various
special names such as culverin, saker, falcon, demi-cannon, &c. We hear
of Cromwell taking with him to Ireland (1649) "two cannon of eight
inches, two cannon of seven, two demi-cannon, two twenty-four pounders,"
&c.

Sir James Turner, a distinguished professional soldier contemporary with
Cromwell, says: "The cannon or battering ordnance is divided by the
English into Cannon Royal, Whole Cannon and Demi-Cannon. The first is
likewise called the Double Cannon, she weighs 8000 pound of metal and
shoots a bullet of 60, 62 or 63 pound weight. The Whole Cannon weighs
7000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 38, 39 or 40 pound. The
Demi-Cannon weighs about 6000 pound and shoots a bullet of 28 or 30
pound. ... These three