6 Dr. Mac Culloch on the 



vances, before asking what claims India has on any of them. 

 It is nof surprising, if, when these burning compositions, what- 

 ever they may have been, were new and little known, they 

 should have given rise to so many tales, and as is more than 

 probable, to much exaggeration. Had the Mexicans given 

 the history of the Spanish arms, and had no other history 

 of guns and gunpowder come down to us, it is easy to under- 

 stand what the consequences must have been. 



It is not here however meant to be denied, that this invention 

 might have spread among the later Arabians from the Greeks. 

 Notwithstanding the attempts at secrecy, the consequence of an 

 order of Constantine Pogonatus, it is certain that it did spread 

 among the surrounding nations, as is fully recorded in the his- 

 tories of those days. 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. 

 This confusion arises from that just noticed, which includes 

 more inventions than one under the common term Greek fire. 



We shall hereafter see that one at least of the Greek fires of 

 the crusades was a composition into which nitre entered, and 

 therefore depending on the same principle as gunpowder. Thus 

 the two inventions are connected ; although it will appear that 

 gunpowder, used as a projectile force for shot, is the more 

 modern of the two. Pyrotechny, or the art of making fire- 

 works, appears to be the original invention, and to have been 

 the true parent of gunpowder, ancient as well as modern. It 

 will be soon shewn, how the Greek fire described by Joinville 

 as used at the siege of Acre, agrees with the most ancient record 

 we have of the use of a similar invention in India. 



Like printing, the loadstone, and much more of our know- 

 ledge that is little suspected, there seems abundant reason to 

 suppose that the cradle of pyrotechny was in the east. In China, 

 the use of fire-works for amusement has been known from a 

 period beyond all record ; and, in India, the use of rockets for 

 military purposes is of an antiquity equally obscure. As all 



