Wooden Matches for Artillery . $7 
balanced by dangers and defects. The saltpetre in these 
port-fires is never entirely burnt, but part runs out of the 
tube. When the materials are not well powdered, they 
are subject to spit, or throw out pieces of burning salt- 
petre to the distance of three or four feet, which may oc- 
casion serious accidents, particularly on board ships. I 
myself had my hair set on fire, and a hole burnt through 
both my coats, by a spark of this kind. In ships they 
are obliged to be kept in the middle of a tub of water on 
this account. 
These were the only means employed to fire pieces of 
artillery, when one of my correspondents at Madrid ac- 
quainted me, that Messrs. Borda and Proust had pro- 
posed to the Spanish government, to substitute instead of 
the cannon match, wooden rods impregnated with nitrate 
of copper. He added, that these rods burnt like touch- 
wood, forming a pointed red coal ; and that the trials 
with them succeeded perfectly, though they had not 
been adopted. I informed his excellency, the minister 
at war, of this new method ; and he requested me to 
make the necessary experiments for ascertaining its 
utility, directing Mr. Lespagnol, a captain in the artil- 
lery, to assist me in the inquiry. 
My first idea was, that all kinds of wood could not be 
equally fit for the purpose ; and that the difference of 
their porosity would occasion a difference in their com- 
bustibility. Before I tried the metallic nitrates, I took 
common saltpetre, and boiled several kinds of wood in a 
strong solution of it, which they imbibed in different pro- 
portions. This attempt did not succeed : the only wood 
that burnt quickly was the common cane, used for dust- 
ing clothes, or rotang ; but its coal had no substance, 
the least blow breaking it off, and extinguishing it. I 
then got a joiner to make me some square rods, half a 
yard long, of oak, elm, ash, elder, birch, poplar, lime, 
