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In Prospectus / dream of a bow with a cast just so;Can science give me such,With the pith* of glass and a yew wood castThat weighs one fourth as much? • Pith, as applied here, takes its meaning from an old English word andused by Aschara in his Toxophilus to denote the good qualities of a bow. The above ditty was composed as I pondered over the ques-tion of just what is the ideal bow. I believe that this littlerhyme comes pretty close to answering that question; at least,it reveals some of the fundamentals. In order for an arrow to have good cast, it must have afast velocity. In order to give an arrow a fast velocity, thelimbs of the bow must react in the minimum of time. Inorder to react swiftly, the limbs must be constructed of amaterial that has rapid and complete recovery for both stressand compression. Rapidity of reaction of the limbs of a bowdepends on the ratio of their mass to their weight. It follows,therefore, that the less the specific gravity of the limbs thefaster their reaction. This brings us to the last line. |
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