STL All Sports

Archery is making tremendous strides in popularity. Whereas once it was a means of livelihood and defense, archery today in the civilized world is pursued as a sport. Increasing numbers are turning to it, and many persons are using it as a means of hunting-a method that makes the acquisition of game, especially deer, more difficult and more fascinating than by means of firearms. In some states, special deer seasons are allocated to archers. Where game is not involved targets are used.

Perhaps the most remarkable sport in the world is archery, partly because of its antiquity, but chiefly because this gentle form of modern diversion once was used as the means to kill in warfare.

Arrows now are shot away from bows-by refined, civilized people-only at a target with a variety of circles, the one driving closest to the inner circle with a specific number of arrows being acclaimed the champion. It was this principle of shooting-but with humans as targets-that devastated the world for thirty centuries-until gunfire became the more effective weapon, about 300 years ago.

No historian has been able to establish exactly which people were first to use the bow and arrow. Inasmuch as archery equipment of ancient kind has been found on all the continents, the conclusion is that the principle of archery was hit upon by the different nations, or tribes, without foreign prompting.

Most writers on archery have held that Australia was the one continent where the bow and arrow were unknown in more ancient times. This is disputed by Dr. Robert P. Elmer, many times United States archery champion, in his book "Archery," who stated that arrows about one foot in length, the size usually used when the tips are treated with poison, have been found in Australia and belonged to tribes long since vanished from earth.

Dr. Elmer's search caused him to offer the thought that perhaps the Aurignacians, a race which existed about 15,000 years ago, might
have been first to use the bow and arrow. The bow and arrow next are discovered in Egypt, and the time is fixed by Dr. Elmer as about seventy centuries ago. Other authorities place archery's extreme age at 5,000 to 6,000 years. Since the Hebrew Chronology, compiled carefully through many centuries, fixes the creation of Adam, the first man, as less than 6,000 years ago, the reader is left to create his own conclusions as to the age of archery.

The bow and arrow were used first for hunting, but the war-like Egyptians, in the time of the earliest Pharaohs, discovering that the arrow could outrange both the sling-shot, man's first weapon in warfare, and the spear, which was the next weapon, took speedy advantage of that knowledge. Inasmuch as the sling-shot had a shooting range of only 140 feet and the javelin a maximum throwing range around 175 feet, the Egyptians secretly equipped their troops with bows and arrows and caused them to practice marksmanship. The arrow could be shot up to 300 feet.