217 



PYROTECHNY/ 



yrotech 

 ny. 



THIS art is properly divisible into two branches, name- 

 ly, that for military purposes, and that intended solely 

 for show or amusement. The former division is very 

 limited in its objects; the latter is, on the contrary, 

 very extensive. It is our intention to give an account 

 of each, reducing the innumerable varieties of authors 

 under as few simple principles as possible. Like many 

 other arts, the present has been chiefly confined to the 

 workshops of artisans, and has perhaps never been 

 fairly treated of by any one who, to general principles, 

 united practical knowledge. Hence almost all the 

 treatises on this subject are deficient either in know- 

 ledge of the details, or in the arrangement : most com- 

 monly, however, in both. Hence also it happens that 

 many of the directions are given in such a manner that 

 it is impossible to understand or execute them ; and 

 very often they do not produce the promised effects. 

 It is also from this cause that the books of pyrotechny 

 are encumbered with superfluous receipts ; composi- 

 tions adopted without any principle; containing ar- 

 ticles that are pernicious or useless : sometimes con- 

 taining the same substance under different names, or 

 substances utterly incapable of producing the intended 

 results. When we read in such authors of saltpetre 

 and nitre as different substances, or examine a receipt 

 to make a black flame, it may easily be understood that 

 these censures are not misapplied. 



Anliqttily of Pyrotechny. 



Antiquity The antiquity and origin of this art is lost in the 

 of Pyro- abyss of past ages. Yet we have little doubt that, like 

 techny. printing, the loadstone, and much more of our know- 

 ledge that is little suspected, its cradle was in the east. 

 In China, the use of fireworks for amusement has been 

 known from a period beyond all record ; and, in In- 

 dia, that of rockets for military purposes is of an anti- 

 quity equally obscure. As all pyrotechny depends on 

 the property which nitre possesses of accelerating the 

 combustion of inflammable substances, even when ex- 

 cluded from the air, and as all the compositions used 

 in this art bear an analogy to gunpowder, it is plain 

 that the antiquity of gunpowder is implied in that of 

 pyrotechny. Yet, as far as the details go, there is little 

 reason to doubt that the art of making various fire- 

 works, by the aid of nitre and inflammable substances, 

 is of more ancient date than that of producing gun- 

 powder, as we now know it. The one, in fact, can be 

 done in a certain way, by almost any mixture of com- 

 bustibles into which nitre enters in a sufficient propor- 

 tion ; whereas, duly to allot the parts, to mix, and to 

 granulate them, requires a degree of foresight, atten- 

 tion, and practice, which was not likely to have occur- 

 red for a long time after. To this compound .we owe 

 the invention, as well as the use of ordnance ; an inven- 

 tion not difficult to derive from some kinds of fire- 

 works, and infinitely more likely to have been pro- 

 duced in this way, than by the ^ften repeated fable of 

 Barthold Schwartz's mortar, whose claims to the in. 

 vention we shall presently show are absolutely un- 

 founded. 



Without thinking it necessary to examine the ques- 

 tion respecting gunpowder particularly, which, proper- 

 ly speaking, is itself but a branch of pyrotechny, we 



shall here attempt to trace backwards to the oldest re* Pjrouch. 

 cords which have reached us respecting any compost- ny. 

 tions of this nature. Here again we are led back to V^y^/ 

 India; and if any doubt it felt in allowing to the 

 Orientals, from a time so remote, an art which only 

 reached us long after, we must recollect that astrono- 

 my and algebra were known in India equally long be- 

 fore they were understood in Europe ; and that the 

 latter, in particular, is of very recent introduction. In 

 the same manner were the mariner's compass and print- 

 ing known to the Chinese : and if we are desirous of 

 wondering why the messengers of Justinian, who 

 brought silk from that remote empire into the west, 

 did not also bring gunpowder and fireworks, we must 

 explain why they did not bring that art which was far 

 more likely to have excited the attention of a literary 

 people. 



In Grey's Gunnery, printed in London in 1731, the 

 following passage is found, deduced from the life of 

 Apollonius Tyaneus, by Philostratus : " These truly 

 wise men dwell between the Hyphasisand the Ganges: 

 their country Alexande'r never entered ; deterred, not 

 by fear of the inhabitants, but, as I suppose, by reli- 

 gious considerations : for had he passed the Hyphasis, 

 he might doubtless have made himself master of the 

 country all round them ; but these cities he never could 

 have taken, though he had led a thousand as brave 

 as Achilles, or three thousand such as Ajax, to the as- 

 sault : for they come not out to the field to fight those 

 who attack them, but these holy men, beloved by the 

 gods, overthrow their enemies with tempests and 

 thunderbolts shot from their walls. It is said that the 

 Egyptian Hercules and Bacchus, when they overran 

 India, invaded this people also, and having prepared 

 warlike engines, attempted to conquer them : they, in 

 the mean time, made no show of resistance, appearing 

 perfectly quiet and secure ; but, upon the enemy's 

 near approach, they were repulsed with lightning and 

 thunderbolts hurled on them from above." These 

 people were the Oxydracae, and the period of Alex- 

 ander is 355 before the Christian era. 



Here then is a record of the very early use of some 

 kind of firework ; whether of ordnance, is more doubt- 

 ful. We should rather be inclined to think that this 

 story alludes to some kind of rocket, which would ful- 

 fil the conditions both of lightning and of thunderbolt?, 

 though much more likely to frighten than to destroy 

 an enemy. , 



The defence of Syracuse by Archimedes in 212 A. C. 

 gives rise to a similar suspicion that even the Greeks 

 were acquainted with some species of firework at that 

 time ; though we do not go so far as to imagine that 

 this celebrated mathematician was acquainted with ord- 

 nance. Vitruvius relates that, by means of one of his 

 engines, he threw large stones on the Roman fleet with 

 a terrible noise; a description which, as far as the 

 noise is concerned, is not applicable to the scorpion, 

 balista, catapulta, or any of the mechanical artillery of 

 the ancients. 



But, to pass over this conjecture, the history of the 

 Oxydraca; will render more easy of belief that which 

 is told of the use of gunpowder, and even of ordnance 

 in China, at a very early period ; a time no less distant 



The Editor has been indebted for this interesting article to JOHN M-icCuLLOCH, M.D- F.R. S. &. &c. 

 VOL. XVII. PART I. 2 E 



