Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/186



"The name of 'balon' is given to a firework which is thrown into the air like artillery bombs for war, so that they are often given the same name as bomb.

"The difference between this firework and a bomb is not only that the former is to amuse and that the latter to destroy, and that the one is made of iron, and the other of wood, linen, or cardboard, but principally because the latter is made to burst and throw out its garniture at the point of the highest elevation, while the war bombs do so at the moment of their fall to the earth, also the war bombs are thrown towards the horizon, while the firework bombs are thrown vertically or nearly so.

"The fireworks differ also from the war bombs in shape, the former being not always spherical, as the latter are.

"We must therefore understand by the name of shell a firework of which the effect and principal beauty is that while going up in the air it only shews a small stream of fire, which multiplies itself suddenly into a great number of others at the moment of its highest elevation, which causes a pleasant surprise.

"As this firework does not lift itself, but is thrown by impulsion the same way as a bomb, it can, like the latter, only be fired from a mortar."

He describes two shapes of shell, the spherical and cylindrical, with a hemispherical end, which shape is more convenient where the contents are long in form, as rockets, Roman candles, etc. He attributes the introduction of this shape to Siemienowitz, who, he says, made the cases of wood. He himself, however, adopts the modern method, as he does with the fuse, which he calls the port-fire. The lifting charge, however, is placed in the mortar separately from the shell and ignited at a touch-hole, in which, as will be seen, he differs from modern practice.