GREEK EIRE. 
169 
extreme diffusion of its oxidizable constituents, and their expo- 
sure to oxygen : lighted in this way at one point, the flame 
would rapidly extend, with explosion; and the fire, as Join- 
ville states, would come down with the velocity of lightning. 
I shall take occasion at some future day to lay before the 
public some carefully elicited facts, of an experimental order, in 
reference to the compound described by the Princess Anna 
Comnena ; for the subject is one not of historical interest 
merely, but of national importance. I do not suppose that any 
fluid, such as is described by the Byzantine writers, will again 
be used in shells or during bombardment ; but in these days, 
when every vessel has a steam-engine, and could have a 
forcing engine to be worked by steam, it might be that an 
enemy, supplied with a combustible fluid such as has been 
described, would prove of terrible danger in attacking wooden 
ships, especially those belonging to the mercantile marine. 
MODERN GREEK EIRE. 
In order to understand the revival of “ liquid fire,” or, if we 
must still continue to call it so, “ Greek fire,” we must descend 
to the year 1680, the year in which was discovered the method 
of making a compound called a “ pyrophorus. 33 In that year a 
chemist, named Homberg, endeavoured to extract from human 
faeces a colourless and odourless oil, which should have the 
power of fixing mercury. Macquer, who is the most accurate 
authority on these points, tells us that Homberg, when he had 
mixed the substances, upon which he was operating with 
different matters, was much surprised, while taking the cctput 
mortuum of one of these mixtures out of the retort, four days 
after it had been operated on, to see it kindle and burn 
strongly as soon as it was exposed to the air. Homberg recol- 
lected that this was the residuum of a mixture of alum and human 
faeces from which he had obtained all that he could by means 
of a red heat. He repeated the process, and obtained the 
same result. • Having published his discovery, other experi- 
mentalists also repeated the proceeding, the statement was 
fully confirmed and the name “ pyrophorus” — irvp (pur), fire ; 
ij>spi o ( pher'd ), I bear — was soon applied to the spontaneously 
ignitible substance. From the Germans it also got the name 
of u luft zunder,” or air tinder. 
Until the year 1713 it was believed implicitly, that in order 
to make the pyrophorus, human fseces were essentially neces- 
sary; then Lemeri the younger instituted a new inquiry, in which 
he substituted honey for the other animal matter ; the result was 
the same : afterwards he used sugar, then flour, and with like 
effects. He was followed by the eminent chemist, Dr. Lejay 
de Savigny, who clearly proved, that by the addition of any 
