Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/167

 will be but labor lost, to bestow time to describe their making."

He also describes a kind of kite which he designates a "Fire Drake," to the tail of which he fastens "divers crackers" which are shown in the illustration to be exactly like the jumping crackers of the present day. Babington illustrates a cracker fixed to the top of a rocket.

Pepys makes the following entry in his diary for November 5th, 1661: "Seeing the boys in the streets flying their crackers."

The only practical difference between the cracker of 1635 and that of to-day is in the difference of methods of manufacture, the early practice being to fold the gunpowder in the paper, the modern, to roll a paper case and fill the powder in through a funnel, afterwards flattening it through a roller mill.

Curiously enough, although the cracker has been in use for centuries in England, there appears to be no early reference to it on the Continent, the word "petard" meaning a cracker in French, but more often being applied to a firework with a single report, such as a maroon or cannon. The Dictionnaire National of 1852, however, describes the true cracker as one of the meanings of "petard."

The rocket is equal to the cracker in its claim to antiquity, and it is extraordinary that these two fireworks should have changed so little in form and composition.

John Babington gives illustrations of rocket-charging tools and describes the manufacture of rockets, which are approximately those of the present day. It is only in the proportion of the ingredients that there is any considerable alteration.

The word "rocket" appears to be Italian in origin, and to be based on the similarity in appearance of a rocket on its stick to the round piece of wood used in the Middle Ages to cover the point of a lance in mimic combat, and known as a