BY THE ANCIENT HINDUS. 



213 



century. The accuracy of the name is even doubtful, as he 

 is also called Marcus Gracchus instead of Graecus. If the 

 latter appellation be the more correct one, it might perhaps 

 be surmised that the work was originally written in Greek. 

 Saltpetre occurs three times in his book, as sal petrosum ; 

 lapis qui dicitur petra salts, and as sal petrum. 84 According to 

 Marcus Graecus the composition of gunpowder is two parts 

 of charcoal, one part of sulphur, and six parts of saltpetre. 



Towards the end of the seventh century the architect 

 Kallinikos of Heliopolis, when Constantinople was besieged by 

 the Arabs in 668, manufactured big tubes made of iron or of 

 other metals, formed like big beasts with gaping jaws, out of 

 which were thrown iron, stones and combustibles. In conse- 

 quence of the havoc caused by these projectiles the siege 

 of the city was raised. The Greeks kept, it is said, the secret 

 of the composition for four centuries, when it was betrayed 

 to the Saracens, who availed themselves of it during the 

 crusades at Jerusalem and also at Damietta. If the ingre- 

 dients are rightly mentioned, e.g., by the Byzantine princess, 

 Anna Komnena, who wrote the history of her father Alexios, 

 they consisted only of resin, oil, and sulphur, and not of 

 saltpetre. As Kallinikos hailed from Heliopolis, the place 

 otherwise known as Baalbec, and as the Greek fire seems to 

 have been a liquid, the most important ingredient of which 

 was naphtha, which was well known to, and was much made 

 use of by the Eastern nations, — as it is found near Baku on 

 the Caspian Sea, (where the gas, as it escapes from fissures in 

 the earth in the neighbourhood of the oilsprings, has been 

 burning unintermittedly for centuries and is worshipped 

 by Parsees,) in the island of Tchelekin on the other side 

 of the Caspian Sea opposite to Baku, in Mesopotamia, 

 in Kurdistan, in North India, and in China — it is proba- 

 ble that Kallinikos only introduced this powerful com- 



84 See John Beckmann's History of Inventions and Discoveries under the 

 article " Saltpetre, Gunpowder, Aqua fortis.-' > 



