GREEK EIRE. 
173 
ciple is the same in this as in the ancient method. In both 
cases, a body greedy, under favourable conditions, for oxygen, 
bursts into flame on being distributed over a wide surface in 
the air, owing to the fact of the combination of its oxidable 
parts with the oxygen of the air. In the old Greek fire, the 
burning body was probably a hydro-carbon ; in the modern, 
the body commonly used is phosphorus. There is, at the 
present time, in England, a patent by a gentleman named 
Macdonald, in which the composition of the fluid used is 
given as phosphorus, bisulphide of carbon, and naphtha. This 
composition, which has been described by its patentee in the 
columns of one of the daily papers, differs somewhat in detail 
from that of Mr. Scott, but it answers as well as need be for 
the purpose of explaining the mode of action of the fluid. 
When widely distributed and exposed to the air, one of the 
ingredients of this fluid, the phosphorus, combines eagerly with 
oxygen, and bursts into flame. If phosphorus be merely 
pressed out over a wide surface in a thin layer, it begins to 
burn, and the thinner the layer the quicker the combustion. 
It would, of course, be too troublesome to carry out 
extension of phosphorus by pressure for the use of the 
soldier, and so another plan is adopted. It happens that 
phosphorus is extremely soluble in the fluid known as bisul- 
phide of carbon. In this fluid phosphorus dissolves almost as 
sugar dissolves in water. Rendered soluble in the bisulphide 
of carbon, the phosphorus remains as unchanged phosphorus 
spread over a large surface of a fluid which prevents it from 
burning so long as it is in contact with it. The solution 
of phosphorus thus prepared, if put in a closed bottle, may be 
kept for years without undergoing any change, and without 
danger. I have some that has been in bottle for seven years, 
and it is the same as ever. But now comes a new fact. 
Bisulphide of carbon is a volatile body at ordinary tempera- 
tures ; phosphorus is not volatile. Whenever, therefore, the 
solution of bisulphide of carbon and phosphorus is poured 
over any surface in the open air, the bisulphide of carbon, 
being volatile, evaporates, leaving the phosphorus distributed 
in a fine layer. Thus exposed, the oxygen of the air unites 
with *»the phosphorus, flame is produced, and any other 
combustible body is fired. 
The principle once established, endless modifications may be 
introduced upon it : for instance, Mr. Macdonald adds naphtha, 
which, when fired by the phosphorus, burns with great fury. 
Mr. Scott has a method that has not yet been published, by 
which the fluid continues to burn even if it be covered with 
water : and there would be no difficulty in so producing it, 
that it should be absolutely nnextinguishable, until it was 
itself burnt out. 
vol. hi. — no. x. 
N 
