1822.] Scientific Intelligence. 391 
pally by that love of the marvellous in which mankind love to indulge. 
The historians who have related its effects, and of whom some have even 
pretended to describe its composition, have involved the subject in per- 
plexities very difficult to disentangle; while succeeding antiquaries 
and historians, their analysts, have had little better success. 
Dr. Mac Culloch apprehends that different inventions, and different 
kinds of Greek fire, have been described by the same name; that the 
main’source of the confusion can be traced to this cause; and that 
there is an intimate connexion between the history of the Greek fire, 
and that of gunpowder. 
The common opinion is, that the Greek fire was invented during the 
reign of Constantine Pogonatus, in the year 668, by Callinicus, an archi+ 
tect of Heliopolis; it was confined, according to Gibbon, for 400 
years to the eastern Romans; he adds, that at the end of the eleventh 
century, the Pisans suffered from it without knowing its composition, 
and concludes with saying, that it was at length discovered or stolen 
by the Mahometans; and that in the holy wars of Syria and Egypt, 
they retorted an invention, contrived against themselves, on the heads 
of the Christians. 
Dr. Mac Culloch observes, respecting this statement, that ‘ the 
communication between Heliopolis and the eastern nations, renders it, 
in the first place, suspicious, that the Greek architect borrowed the in- 
vention from the orientals. That they possessed it at least before the 
Greeks, whether they communicated it or not, appears to me as capa- 
ble of proof as can be expected under similar circumstances. When 
Gibbon says, that the Mahometans borrowed the invention from the 
Christians during the wars of the crusades, he forgets that the Ara- 
bians learned their chemistry from the Egyptians, by whom that art 
was practised 300 years at least before the time of Mahomet. 
That they also borrowed from a still more distant oriental source, 
appears equally certain.” 
Naphtha is said to have been one of the chief ingredients in this 
composition; and that substance is well known to be very common in 
“many parts of the ancient Persian kingdom and in India, Now it is 
much more probable, that a burning compound in which naphtha was an 
ingredient, should have been invented where that substance abounded, 
than where it was unknown; and if it can be proved that the use of 
inflammable compositions was known to the eastern nations before the 
time of Callinicus, his claim to this invention falls to the ground. It 
night, however, have spread among the later Arabians from the 
Greeks; it became common, and probably from this very source, in 
the wars of the crusades ; “‘ but it is also possible that this, or one of 
the different inventions known by the same name, might have been 
discovered by the Arabians themselves, who were then much addicted 
to chemical pursuits.” 
One at least of the Greek fires of the crusades was a composition 
into which nitre entered, and, therefore, depending on the same princi- 
ple as gunpowder ; and thus the two inventions are connected. The 
art of making fire-works appears to be the original invention, and to 
haye been the true parent of gunpowder, ancient as well as modern. 
here seems abundant reason to suppose that the cradle of pyrotechny 
was in the east; in China, the use of fireworks for amusement has 
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