Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/187

 He gives a list of garnitures or fillings, which are interesting as showing the practice of the day:

"The first is the one which gives the effect of a waterfall or head of hair. This is made of thin narrow tubes, or if possible, of thin canes, cut to the length of the shell, and filled with a slow-burning composition made of three parts of priming powder, two of charcoal, and one of sulphur, damped with a little petroleum, and capped with a paste made of powder crushed in distilled water or spirit and afterwards dried. All these are put in the tube, around the one which is used for the passage of the port-fire.

"When it is full the loaded port-fire is introduced, and pushed so far that it reaches the frame, and when it is touching the lid, this lid must be glued by the rough ends to that of the tube, and the shell is finished.

"As it is rather heavy, it is advisable to adopt means for its resisting the shock of the lifting charge of powder which drives it out of the mortar, by strengthening it with a covering of linen strips, which should be stuck on to the shell by means of a paste, composed of two-thirds of flour paste, and one-third of glue.

"Unless this is done it often happens that the shell bursts before it rises in the air."

The second consists of serpents, the third of "saucissons volans," similar to the "fiz-gig" of Bate; the choke in the middle between the composition and the bang being varied in position so as to produce a succession of bangs. The vacant spaces left over in the shorter may be filled with stars.

The fourth is of stars arranged in beds of grain powder; the interstices being filled with a mixture of mealed powder and charcoal. The fifth of "light balls," and for the sixth he describes "the manner of making figures and various shapes