1876.] E. Maclagan— On Early Asiatic Fire Weapons. 



was prepared with petroleum. It was not one single mixture compounded 

 after the prescription of Callinicus. Nor does there appear to have been 

 any secret m the matter, nor does the art appear to have been at any time 

 lost.* Only all people had not command of the most essential materials of 

 the composition, and in particular, of the petroleum or naphtha, which is 

 frequently named as the chief or only combustible thus used.f 



With still less certainty can the invention or discovery of gunpowder 

 be assigned to any particular time or person. When it is claimed for Eoger 

 Bacon or Berthold Schwartz, it comes to little more than this, that they 

 were attentive students of the chemistry of their time and acquainted with 

 compositions of the nature of gunpowder, and that they recorded what they 

 knew and had seen. It was, however, apparently without knowing or not- 

 ing the capabilities of gunpowder for application to military purposes. J 

 From the various combinations of the ingredients for use in fire-works, the 

 advance was great which resulted in the application of the compound to 

 explosive and projectile purposes, and its preparation in a form suitable for 

 those uses. The discovery of its expansive power would, it might be sup- 



* See Eeinaud and Fave, Chap. VIII, p. 219, &c. 



f A question arises whether a mistake is not made in the use of the term Greek 

 Fire ; not merely the question suggested by its uncertain history, whether or not it was 

 in any sense of Greek origin, but whether the word " Greek" is the right representa- 

 tion of the term from which it is taken. Is the term " Greek Fire 9 ' or any exact equi- 

 valent, used before the time of the Crusade Chronicles in which it appears in the form 

 Feu Gregeois ? And are the names since used, Ignis Grcecus, Greek Fire &c. taken 

 from this ? Then what is Gregeois ? The word is almost, if not entirely, limited to this 

 particular application of it. The Dictionary of the French Academy says " Gregeois. 

 II n'est usite que dans cette locution, feu gregeois, espece d'artifice dont on se servait 

 anciennement a la guerre/' &c. It is not used as a synonym of Grec. Can it be con- 

 nected with any other word ? The old French verb gregier is thus interpreted in the 

 Complement of the French Academy's Dictionary. " Gregier, v. a. et n. (V. lang.), Gre- 

 ver, Accabler, Faire tort.' 5 And grever is from gravis ; (greve = grief). (Diez, My* 

 mological Dictionary of the Homance languages^ by T. G. Donkin.) A derivation of gre- 

 geois frem gregier does not appear impossible or fanciful. May it not have been a 

 descriptive epithet of the fire, grievous or terrible ? Just as in China the material is 

 said to have been known in the tenth century by the name of " oil of the cruel fire." 

 {Grose, II, 309). The suggestion is perhaps not worth much. But the title of the fire 

 to the name Greek does not appear clear. 



X Not that this would have been set aside as being of no concern to men of their 

 profession. Sir Walter Scott's picture of an energetic monk, technically familiar with 

 the construction and working of the mechanical war engines of his time, while profes- 

 sing that they did not come within the range of his studies, (The Betrothed, Chap. 

 VIII) is probably not a mere personal portrait. Inmates of monasteries, as well as 

 other ecclesiastics, of the Middle Ages, while they were the conservators of learning, and 

 the cultivators of the ornamental arts, did not neglect to keep an eye on the arts that 

 pertained to war. 



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