188 GUNPOWDER. 



dearer commodity than either sulphur or charcoal, but it enters 

 also in a much greater proportion into the composition of gun- 

 powder than both those materials taken together ; hence there 

 is a great temptation to lessen the quantity of the saltpetre^ and 

 to augment that of the other ingredients ; and the fraud is not 

 easily detected, since gunpowder, which will explode readily and 

 loudly, may be made with very different quantities of saltpetre. 



'* Baptista Porta died in the year 1515: he gives three dif- 

 ferent proportions for the making of gunpowder, according as it 

 was required to be of different strength, the quantities of the 

 several ingredients contained in one hundred pounds weight of 

 each sort of powder. 



100 100 100 



11 It is somewhat remarkable that in these three powders the 

 sulphur and charcoal are used in equal quantities. Cardan died 

 about sixty years after Baptista Porta, and during that interval 

 the proportions of ingredients of gunpowder seem to have under- 

 gone a great change. Cardan's proportions are expressed as 

 follows : 



GREAT GUNS. MIDDLE SIZED. SMALL. 



Saltpetre 50/6. . 66J/6. . 83J/6. 



Sulphur 16j . 15f . 8f- 



Charcoal 53j . 20 . 8-| 



100 100 100 



<; For great and middle sized guns, we see a much greater 

 proportion of charcoal than of sulphur was here used : at present 

 it is in most places the reverse ; or at least the charcoal nowhere 

 exceeds the sulphur. The proportions were as under, for the 



