Part 1
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A MANUAL OF PYROTECHNY;
OR,
A FAMILIAR SYSTEM OF Recreative Fire-Works.
BY G. W. MORTIMER.
Admotam rapiunt vivacia sulfura flammam. OVID.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR W. SIMPKIN & R. MARSHALL, STATIONERS’ HALL COURT, LUDGATE STREET.
MDCCCXXIV.
W. TYLER, PRINTER, 5, BRIDGEWATER SQUARE.
PREFACE.
The Introduction prefixed to the following little Manual supersedes the necessity of an extended Preface, and leaves little more to be mentioned than the design and occasion of the work.
The design of it is to be a useful assistant to those who are fond of a rational and scientific amusement, and the occasion of it arises from the great scarcity and general difficulty of procuring any work on the subject; none having appeared worthy of notice since that published by Lieutenant Robert Jones, in 1760, and those by the French Artists mentioned in our Introduction.
In didactic particulars the Author has occasionally availed himself of the language of the best writers, where such has been corroborated by subsequent experience.
Perspicuity has been a particular object through the work, and when technical terms have been used they are generally followed by familiar explications, and the Author feels assured that the whole will be found perfectly intelligible to every reader. To experienced Pyrotechnists this little work cannot be expected to afford much additional information, yet to them it may contain some little particulars not known to them before, which from their practical utility it is hoped will prove acceptable.
The Author publishes this little work, with the desire that it may prove a useful assistant to those who are unacquainted with the principles of the art on which it treats. If in any way it should contribute to this purpose, an apology for obtruding it upon the Public will certainly be unnecessary.
_January 1st, 1824._
CONTENTS.
Page
Introduction 1
SECTION I.
History and description of Gunpowder 10
SECTION II.
Materials 29
Nitre ibid.
Sulphur 32
To purify Sulphur 34
Charcoal ibid.
Steel-dust 35
To prepare Iron-sand 37
Second method ibid.
Oil of Camphor 40
Benzoin ibid.
SECTION III.
Apparatus 42
Grinding Machines 43
Another method of Grinding 44
Method of Mixing the Ingredients 45
SECTION IV.
Description and Variety of Fire-works 47
Touch-paper 48
To make Touch-paper ibid.
Quick-match 49
To make Quick-matches; and composition for ditto 50
Port-Fires 51
Compositions for ditto 52
Port-fires for Illuminations 53
Leaders, or Pipes of Communication ibid.
Application of ditto 54
SECTION V.
Of single Fire-works 57
Serpents ibid.
Crackers 59
Pin wheels 61
Stars 63
Strung Stars 64
Tailed Stars 65
Driven Stars ibid.
Rolled Stars 6
Sparks 68
Another method of making ditto 69
Marroons ibid.
Construction 70
Saucissons ibid.
Batteries of Marroons, &c. 71
Gerbes 72
Small Gerbes 75
Roman Candles 76
Chinese Fire 79
Composition for ditto, Red and White ibid.
SECTION VI.
Rockets 81
Sky Rockets 83
Dimensions of Rockets 88
Calibre and Weight of Rockets 89
Calibre of Moulds 90
Remarks on the foregoing Tables 91
Preparing the Cartridges 93
Filling and Ramming the Cases 96
Directions for ditto 97
Preparing and fixing the pots to the Heads of Rockets 101
Table for the Length and Proportion of Rods 105
Tables of Composition for Rockets 106
To cause a Rocket to ascend in a Spiral form 109
Towering Rockets 110
Honorary Rockets 111
Caduceus Rockets 112
Signal Rockets 113
Table Rockets 115
Scrolls for Rockets 116
Courantines, or Line Rockets 117
Revolving Courantines 121
To represent by Rockets various forms in the air 122
To cause a Rocket to form an arc in rising 128
To fire Rockets without Rods 124
Theory of the flight of Rockets 125
SECTION VII.
Tables of various compositions 130
SECTION VIII.
Compound Fire-Works 139
Girandole chests of Serpents ibid.
Girandole chests of Rockets 141
Pots des Brins 142
Jets of Fire 143
Chinese Fountain 145
Pyramid of Flower Pots 146
Wheels 149
Ditto single Horizontal 150
Ditto Plural 152
Wheels Spiral 152
Ditto Ditto Illuminated 153
Ditto Balloon 154
Ditto Ground 155
Ditto Horizontal changed to a Vertical 156
Ditto Vertical Scroll 158
Ditto remarks on ibid.
Fir tree, to represent 159
Yew tree of Brilliant Fire 160
Fixed Fire Globes 161
Globes which leap or roll on the ground ibid.
Moon and seven Stars 164
Suns, fixed and moveable 165
Composition for representing Animals and other devices in fire 168
Aquatic fire-works ibid.
Fire fountain for the water 170
Conclusion 172
Introduction.
The term _Pyrotechny_ is derived from _pyr_ and _techny_, the two Greek words for FIRE and ART; or it is the art of employing fire for purposes of utility or pleasure. The term has been applied by some writers to the use and structure of fire-arms, and Artillery employed in the art of warfare; but in the present publication, we shall take a different view of the subject; for we can see no amusement in the motion of a bullet, which decimates so many of our fellow-creatures, nor in the action of a bomb-shell, that carries with it more dreadful devastations.
We shall confine ourselves in this Work to a more pleasing application of fire, and endeavour to give plain and efficient rules for the _safe_ management of that element, and for the making, by means of gunpowder, and other inflammable substances, various compositions, agreeable to the eye, both by their form and splendor, and to describe every principal article and instrument made use of in these pleasing operations.
On the other hand, our Work does not pretend to dictate an _original_ set of rules and receipts, for those who term themselves _Artists in Fire-works_, whose exclusive business it is to manufacture the different articles on which it treats; to those, it is expected it will yield but little instruction; but, to the sciolistic Tyro in the Art, it is intended (as its title expresses) to be a _Manual of Pyrotechny_, and to treat of fire-works as objects of rational amusement; to describe in a perspicuous manner the materials and apparatus made use of in their construction; and to select such examples of their particular combinations, as are calculated rather for private diversion than public exhibition. The directions herein given (if strictly attended to) will enable youth to gratify their taste for this species of recreation at a comparatively small expense, and at the same time will guard them against those accidents which often arise to the ignorant, in firing the larger works purchased from the makers; and throughout the whole it will strictly observe a principle of economy, the neglect of which has so frequently retarded the operations of genius.
In regard to the origin of Pyrotechny, our knowledge is very limited. The Chinese are said to have been the first people who had any practical knowledge of it, or brought the art to any degree of perfection; with them the use of fire-works is said to have been very general, long before they were known in European countries; and from accounts given of some recent exhibitions at Pekin, it should seem that they have attained to a degree of perfection not surpassed by any of our modern artists: Mr. Barrow, in his “Travels in China” gives, from the Journal of Lord Macartney, the following description of one of their exhibitions: “The fire-works, in some particulars,” says he, “exceeded any thing of the kind I had ever seen. In grandeur, magnificence, and variety, they were, I own, inferior to the Chinese fire-works we had seen at Batavia, but infinitely superior in point of novelty, neatness, and ingenuity of contrivance. One piece of machinery I greatly admired: a green chest, five feet square, was hoisted up by a pulley fifty or sixty feet from the ground, the bottom of which was so contrived as then suddenly to fall out, and make way for twenty or thirty strings of lanterns, inclosed in a box, to descend from it, unfolding themselves from one another by degrees, so as at last, to form a collection of full five hundred, each having a light of a beautifully coloured flame burning brightly within it. This devolution and development of lanterns were several times repeated, and at every time exhibiting a difference of colour and figure. On each side was a correspondence of smaller boxes, which opened in like manner as the other, and let down an immense net-work of fire, with divisions and compartments of various forms and dimensions, round and square, hexagons, octagons, &c. which shone like the brightest burnished copper, and flashed like prismatic lightnings, with every impulse of the wind. The whole concluded with a volcano, or general explosion and discharge of suns and stars, squibs, crackers, rockets, and grenadœs, which involved the gardens for an hour in a cloud of intolerable smoke.” The diversity of colour, with which the Chinese have the secret of clothing their fire, seems one of the chief merits of their “Pyrotechny;” and which alone would set them upon an equal footing with the Europeans. It is to them, no doubt, that we are indebted for the discovery of that beautiful composition, which is still known by the name of the “Chinese fire:” and to them we are likewise indebted, for the method of representing with fire, that pleasing and perpetual variety of figures, which (when judiciously arranged) seem to emulate in splendour those endless beauties, which adorn our celestial hemisphere. In Europe, the Florentines are said to have been the first people that gained a knowledge of the invention, and, we have reason to think it was not long after the discovery of the use of gunpowder and fire-arms, about the end of the thirteenth, or beginning of the fourteenth century; we say the _use_ of gunpowder, or application of it to fire-arms, for we believe the discovery of it to be of much earlier date, than what is generally given to it: and, whether the invention of the art of fire-works is not coeval with that of gunpowder, is a question not over-burthened with improbability. The French have published several treatises on Pyrotechny, such as the “_Traité des Feux d’Artifice pour le spectacle et pour la Guerre_,” by Perrinet d’Orval. The _Manuel d’Artificier_, by Father d’Incarville, and several others of the like nature: in some of which, they attach to the Chinese a _very_ early knowledge of the art, and consequently the composition of gunpowder, or at least the effects of a similar combination, was not entirely unknown to them. But as the French gained their knowledge of the art from the Italians, they may probably be in an error respecting its invention: whether they are or not, it will have but a negative effect on the present Work. Tracing its progress to England, we shall endeavour to give as good a delineation of the state in which it now exists, as the nature of our Work will admit; supposing it to be much nearer perfection than when in its earlier stages, for we believe the English import nothing but what they improve.
An art which furnishes such an extensive field for amusement, reduced to plain and simple rules, digested in a familiar manner, (which the most limited capacities will be able to understand,) cannot fail to be entertaining to every admirer of scientific amusement.
It has been regretted by many that no publication of a like nature is now extant; and a celebrated writer, long known to the popular reader, has even said, that “the English have no respectable work on the subject.”
How far the present will supply such a desideratum must be left for the candid reader to determine. The Author would wish it to be understood, that although he has conducted some part of his Work upon mathematical principles, it is not intended as a perfect philosophical work on the subject, but as an attempt to embody into one small volume, all that has hitherto been written on the subject; and if from which, the Pyrotechnic Tyro receive any assistance for the attainment of an Art, which has for its object such an endless source of entertainment, the Author’s purpose will be positively realized.
Though very much protracted, we cannot close our Introduction without observing, that few spectacles are more beautiful or more calculated for entertainment, than a well-conducted display of fire-works, in which are exhibited such various bodies, so brilliantly illuminated, and arranged in the most variegated forms: sometimes producing surprising and unexpected manations, moving with velocity through the air, throwing out innumerable sparks or blazing balls, which fly off into the infinity of space: others suddenly exploding, scatter abroad luminous fragments of fire, which are trajected with the most speedy trepidation: and again, others are revolving on a quiescent centre, and by their revolutions produce the most beautiful circles of fire, which seem to vie with each other in their emanations of splendour and light.
Such is a faint delineation of the various effects which are producible by fire, and for which we shall endeavour to give every requisite instruction; and for preparing the most pleasing garbs, in which this element may be presented.
MANUAL, &c.
SECTION I.
OF GUNPOWDER.
Before we enter into the practical part of Pyrotechny, we deem it consistent with the nature of our Work to give an ample description of the materials made use of; for we do not take it for granted that all our readers are _chemists_, or that they are sufficiently versed in that science to render such description unnecessary. But before the principles of the art can be well understood, or successfully applied, it is proper that the artist should possess a portion of _chemical_ and _mechanical_ knowledge; the first will teach him to select his materials with judgment, to free them from impurities, and combine them in the proportions most suitable for each particular purpose; and the latter will assist him in constructing his different pieces so as to produce the desired effect with the least loss of time and force. The _mechanical apparatus_ we shall defer describing till they come immediately under hand, and such protraction we think will be conducive to a better understanding of their utility: and, in some other Section, we shall teach him to calculate the direction which the flying fire-works (from their principles of construction) are to move, and the velocity with which they are to proceed.
Gunpowder is the principal ingredient made use of in Pyrotechny; and, being of itself a compound, we shall make it the first object of description, and endeavour to point out the cause of every property it possesses.
The invention of it is ascribed, by Polydore Virgil, to a chemist, who accidentally put some of the composition, viz. nitre, sulphur, and charcoal into a mortar, and covered it with a stone, when it happened to take fire, and, what was a natural (though unexpected) consequence of such combination, it shattered the stone to pieces.
Thevet says, the person here spoken of was a monk of Fribourg, named Constantine Anelzen; but Belleforet, and other authors, with more probability, suppose him to be Bartholdus Schwartz, or the Black, who discovered it, as some say, about the year 1320; and the first use of it is ascribed to the Venetians in the year 1380, during the war with the Genoese; and it is said to have first been employed in a place anciently called Fossa Clodia, now Chioggia, against Lawrence de Medicis; and that all Italy made complaints against it, as a manifest contravention of fair warfare.
But this account is contradicted, and Gunpowder shewn to be of an earlier era, for the Moors, when they were besieged in 1343 by Alphonsus XI. King of Castile, are said to have discharged a sort of iron mortars upon them, which made a noise like thunder; and this assertion is seconded by what Don Pedro, bishop of Leon, relates of King Alphonsus, who reduced Toledo, viz. “that in a sea-combat between the King of Tunis, and the Moorish King of Seville, about four hundred and fifty years ago, those of Tunis had certain iron tubes or barrels, wherewith they threw thunder-bolts of fire.”
Farther, it appears that our Roger Bacon knew of Gunpowder near a hundred years before Schwartz was born. That excellent friar tells us, in his treatise, “_De Secretis Operibus Artis & Naturæ, & de Nullitate Magiæ_,” that from salt-petre, and other ingredients, we are able to make a fire that shall burn at what distance we please; and the writer of the life of Friar Bacon says, that Bacon himself has divulged the secret of this composition in a cypher, by transposing the letters of the two words in chap. xi. of the above-cited treatise, where it is thus expressed; “sed tamen salis petræ _lura mope can ubre_, (i. e. carbonum pulvere) et sulphuris; et sic facies tonitrum & corruscationem, si scias artificium:” and from hence Bacon’s biographer apprehends the words _carbonum pulvere_ were transferred to the sixth chapter of Dr. Longbain’s MS. In this same chapter Bacon expressly says, that sounds like thunder, and coruscations, may be formed in the air, much more horrible than those that happen naturally. He adds, that there are many ways of doing this, by which a city or an army might be destroyed; and he supposes that, by an artifice of this kind, Gideon defeated the Midianites with only three hundred men, (Judges, chap. 7th.) There is only another passage to the same purpose, in his treatise “De Scientia Experimentalia:” see Dr. Jebb’s edition of the Opus Magus, p. 474. Mr. Robins apprehends (see the preface to his Tracts,) that Bacon describes Gunpowder, not as a new composition first proposed by himself, but as the application of an old one to military purposes, and that it was known long before this time.
Dr. Jebb, in his preface to the above-cited work, describes two kinds of fire-works; one for flying, inclosed in a case or cartouche, made long and slender, and filled with the composition closely rammed, like our modern rocket, and the other thick and short, strongly tied at both ends, and half filled, resembling our cracker; and the composition which he prescribes for both, is two pounds of charcoal, one pound of sulphur, and six pounds of salt-petre, well powdered and mixed together in a stone mortar.
Mr. Dutens in his “Inquiry into the Origin of the discoveries attributed to the moderns,” carries the antiquity of Gunpowder much higher; and refers to the accounts given by Virgil, Hyginus, Eustathius, Valerius Flaccus, and many other writers of the same date.
To close this tedious detail, we will mention one more work, which seems to confirm the antiquity of this composition, viz. the “Code of Gentoo Laws,” 1776; in the preface of which it is asserted, that Gunpowder was known to the inhabitants of Hindostan, far beyond all periods of investigation.