172 GUNPOWDEK. 



the Oxidrakes in India ; and was that which the Macedonians 

 called thunder and lightning, and magick. And it is well known 

 that the use of ordnance hath been in China above 2000 years*." 



One of the most useful applications of gunpowder, is in the art of 

 mining. The hammer and metallic wedges were probably the first 

 instruments which men used for the splitting of rocks. The appli- 

 cation of wooden wedges to the same purpose, seems to have been 

 a more recent discovery : it is the property of dry wood to expand 

 itself, when wetted with water: miners have had ingenuity enough 

 to avail themselves of this property, for it is a practice with them 

 to drive wedges of dry wood into the natural or artificial crevices 

 of rocks, and to moisten the M'edges with water. Wood, by 

 imbibing moisture, swells in every dimension ; and the force of this 

 expansion is sufficient, in many cases, to detach large pieces from 

 the main body of a rock. But the expansive force of gunpowder 

 is incomparably greater than that of moistened wood. There are 

 different accounts of the time when gunpowder was first applied to 

 the blasting of rocks. Rossler relates that in 1627, the blasting 

 of mines was brought from Hungary, and introduced in the Ger- 

 man mines : but Bayer says, that in 1613, it was invented by 

 Martin Freygold, at Freiberg +. 



In answer to an inquiry which I made concerning the time when 

 blasting was introduced at the famous copper-mine at Ecton in 

 Staffordshire, I received the following account from a very able 

 and intelligent person. *' I can give you a little better information 

 concerning the affair of blasting. I have known that country where 

 the mine is, above fifty years; and have often seen the smith's shop 

 in which, tradition says, the first boring auger that had ever been 

 used in England was made ; and that the first shot that was ever 

 fired in Derbyshire or Staffordshire, was fired in this very copper, 

 mine at Ecton. The inhabitants of Wetton (a village adjoining 

 to the mine) tell me the auger was made by some German miners, 

 sent for over by Prince Rupert to work this copper mine at Ecton. 

 The Prince (Rapin says) came into England in 1636, and was 

 ordered by the king to leave the kingdom 164-5 ; and though he 

 was afterwards admiral under Charles the Second, it is most pro- 

 bable the miners came during his first abode in this kingdom. I am 



* Bacon's Essay on the Vicissitude of Things. 



i See Travels through the Bannat, &c. by Baron Born, F.ng. Trans, p. 19?. 



