Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/252

 with rockets of 50 lbs. and 120 lbs., which carried a bomb weighing 16 lbs. The composition was nine parts saltpetre, four parts sulphur, and three parts charcoal. The case is stated to have been of wood covered with linen.

Hyder Ali is credited with making considerable use of rockets against our troops in India; he is said to have had a corps of 1,200 "rocketers" in 1788, whilst later on, his son, Tippoo Sahib, employed as many as 5,000, and Captain Moritz Myer, writing in 1836, ascribes to experience of these weapons so gained the efforts made in England to bring them to perfection.

He also describes the Indian rocket as "an iron envelope about 8 inches long and 1-1/2 inches in diameter, with sharp points at the top. The stick of bamboo 8 or 10 feet long, but sometimes consisting of an iron rod. They were hand-thrown by the rocketers, and did much damage to the cavalry."

This description, which, to say the least, is unconvincing, would seem rather to refer to some other pyrotechnic missile.

Whatever may have been the cause, there was undoubtedly great interest in the subject of rockets during the first half of the nineteenth century. Sir William Congreve is perhaps best known in connection with the work of this period. His efforts, however, were rather directed to the development of existing ideas than to invention.

In 1804, after experiments at the Royal Laboratory, Woolwich, a flotilla of boats was fitted out under his direction for the purpose of bombarding Boulogne Harbour with incendiary rockets from frames fixed on the decks. The first attempt ended in a fiasco owing to heavy weather, but the following year better results were obtained, although the rockets were deflected by the wind and did more damage in the town than in the harbour.

In 1807 Congreve personally superintended their use at