FIRE-WATER 



3163 



FIREWORKS 



only moderately warmed. W. L. 

 Allardyce, watching it in Fiji in 

 1904, reported that a handkerchief 

 was charred by the stones, and 

 that a thermometer registered an 

 air temperature over the pit of 

 280 F. Other modern accounts 

 come from Mauritius, New Zea- 

 land, Japan, China, India, and 

 Bulgaria. The rite sometimes 

 consists in passing through flame, 

 especially as an act of devotion, a 

 custom preserved among Euro- 

 pean rustics when leaping over 

 bonfires " for luck." 



Fire-walking as a chastity or 

 sanctity ordeal was recorded in 



early Vedic India (c. 1200 B.C.), 

 passed into medieval Europe, and 

 in the form of treading barefoot 

 over nine glowing ploughshares 

 was successfully accomplished by 

 Queen Emma, mother of Edward 

 the Confessor. See Ordeal. 



Fire- Water. Generic, popular 

 name for any spirituous or dis- 

 tilled liquor, originally used by 

 the natives of half -civilized lands 

 for European cordials. It is 

 akin to the Spanish name for 

 brandy, aguardiente, or " burning 

 water," to the Celtic usquebaugh, 

 or " water of life," and the French 

 eau-de-vie. See Brandy. 



FIREWORKS: FOR WAR AND DISPLAY 



Alan St. H. Brock, Director, Brock's Fireworks. Ltd. 



This article, which traces the development of fireworks, is supple- 

 mented by shorter ones on the various fireworks themselves, e.g. 

 Rocket ; Roman Candle ; Squib. See also Gunpowder 



The science of pyrotechny is of 

 great antiquity in the East, where, 

 however, little progress has been 

 made. The Indian pyrotechnists 

 are considerably in advance of the 

 Chinese in display work, but both 

 depend on gunpowder, Chinese 

 fire, and a few simple colour com- 

 positions, the remainder of the 

 display being made up of such 

 adventitious aids as transparen- 

 cies, paintings, decorated frame- 

 work, and, among the Chinese, 

 paper patterns. Travellers in China 

 give enthusiastic accounts of 

 Chinese exhibitions which with- 

 out these accessories which have 

 no claim to be called fireworks 

 would not produce a display equal 

 to that given in their own country 

 at a provincial flower show. 



Although originally the art was 

 introduced in Europe from the 

 East, most of the set pieces and 

 devices used in India to-day are 

 primitive copies of European 

 originals. The European method 

 of outlining pictures with a series 

 of small fireworks known as lances, 

 connected by quickmatch, is imi- 

 tated by the Hindu pyrotechnists 

 with small wicks burning in oil. 

 Early European Fireworks 



The Japanese alone of Eastern 

 peoples have made progress in 

 genuine firework effects, the aerial 

 shells being particularly fine, de- 

 pending for their effect on their 

 wonderfully careful and exact 

 construction. 



In Europe there is very little 

 early record of fireworks, but it 

 seems most likely that pyrotechnic 

 compositions were introduced by 

 the Crusaders in the 13th century. 

 Richard Coeur de Lion used Greek 

 fire in his own galley. Jebb, in 

 his preface to Bacon's Opus Majus, 

 refers to two fireworks evidently 



the prototypes of the rocket and 

 the cracker. Stowe mentions that 

 two foreigners, Peter Band and 

 Peter van Cullen, made for 

 Henry VIII hollow shot of cast 

 iron filled with " firework or wild 

 fire." The first serious work on 

 pyrotechny published in Great 

 Britain is Pyrotechnia, by John 

 Babington, Gunner, 1635 ; there 

 is another work on fireworks pub- 

 lished the same year by John 

 Bate, who mentions in his pre- 

 face that other authors were writ- 

 ing on the same subject. The con- 

 tents of these works indicate that 

 by this time the art had greatly 

 developed, the form, methods of 

 making, and nomenclature of the 

 firework units approximating to 

 those of the present day. The 

 methods of displaying and the 

 contained compositions, however, 

 have greatly advanced since then. 

 Display in St. James's Park, 1749 

 Up to the beginning of the 19th 

 century the display was expanded, 

 as in the East, by the addition of 

 pictures, transparencies, bonfires, 

 etc. In the official programme of 

 the display in St. James's Park to 

 celebrate the peace of Aix-la- 

 Chapelle, 1749, several pages are 

 devoted to a description of the 

 Machine for the Fireworks in the 

 form of a Doric temple 114 ft. high 

 and 410 ft. long, ornamented with 

 " frets, gilding, lustres and arti- 

 ficial flowers, inscriptions, statues, 

 "and allegorical pictures." It seems 

 that these adjuncts were ] ooked 

 upon as the fireworks proper, the 

 fireworks themselves as now ac- 

 cepted being known as *' artificial 

 fireworks." During the 19th cen- 

 tury, displays became gradually to 

 consist of veritable fireworks ; 

 great advances were made. The 

 weekly displays carried out by 



Messrs. Brock at the Crystal 

 Palace from 1865 to 1910 and 

 after the Great War were perhaps 

 the most important factor in the 

 development of the art. Other 

 historical displays in recent years 

 are the display on the Tagus for 

 the marriage of the king and 

 queen of Portugal in 1886 ; that 

 for the tercentenary celebration at 

 Quebec hi 1908 ; and the official 

 Peace Day display in Hyde Park 

 in July, 1919. 



Broadly speaking, the same prin- 

 ciple governs the compositions of 

 all fireworks, that is to say, a sub- 

 stance which readily takes up 

 oxygen is put in intimate contact 

 with one which readily supplies it. 

 Of the latter the most frequently 

 used are nitrate of potash (salt- 

 petre) and chlorate of potash, and 

 of the former, sulphur and char- 

 coal, or other carbon compounds, 

 such as gums, resins, starch, etc. 



Composition and Construction 

 Many of the metals are used either 

 in the form of salts, as those of 

 copper, lead, or mercury, or pure, 

 in the form of powder or filings, as 

 iron, steel, magnesium, and alumi- 

 nium. The pure metals are gener- 

 ally added to produce glowing 

 sparks or coruscations, or to add 

 brilliance to the burning. Colours 

 are produced by the addition of 

 metal salts, strontium producing 

 red, sodium yellow, copper blue, 

 barium green. The salts most com- 

 monly used are the nitrates, chlo- 

 rates, carbonates, and perchlorates. 



The usual method of construc- 

 tion is to charge the composition j 

 into a case composed of strong 

 paper rolled on a former ; the end 

 to be ignited is covered with an 

 easily ignited and hotly burning 

 composition or priming, the func- 

 tion of which is to ignite the main 

 filling. Priming compositions usu- 

 ally contain mealed gunpowder. 

 In some fireworks the case burns 

 down with the composition, as in 

 the case of lances, and starlights 

 and Catherine wheels. The latter 

 consist of a long, charged case 

 wound round a circular block of 

 wood, the fire issuing with suffi- 

 cient force to rotate the wheel 

 round a pin inserted through a hole 

 in the centre of the block. Gener- 

 ally the case does not burn, and 

 by this means the fire is projected 

 with more force from the mouth 

 of the case. To this type belong 

 Roman candles, which have at 

 intervals down their length stars 

 which are projected upwards from 

 the mouth of the case to a consider- 

 able height. These stars of colour 

 or other suitable compositions are 

 compressed into small cylinders to 

 fit the bore of the case, and primed. 

 When still more force is required, 



