Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/258

 new methods of protection and communication, and in many cases the resuscitation of old ideas long since abandoned.

And as fire has for all time been associated with the sword, it is small wonder that pyrotechny played no inconspicuous part in the struggle.

As has always been the case, and no doubt always will be, the outbreak of hostilities was the signal for an epidemic of inventions. Men who had never before interested themselves either in war, or in that particular department of science to which their ideas belong, and in spite of or perhaps because of an entire ignorance of the subject, inundated the authorities with so-called inventions which were so much waste of time to all concerned.

In this connection it is interesting to turn to a volume of "Abridgements of Specifications relating to Fire-arms and Other Weapons," published by the Patent Office in 1859. The preface contains the following remarks: "It is worthy of notice that a very large proportion of the so-called inventions of the present day are, in fact, old contrivances, sometimes modified and adapted to modern requirements, but very often identical with what has been tried and abandoned as useless long ago. From the year 1617 down to the end of the year 1852, not more than about 300 patents were granted for inventions relating to fire-arms. When the war with Russia broke out the Patent Office was inundated with applications for Letters Patent for similar inventions, and about 600 have since been actually granted. Of these it may be safely said that five-sixths of the applications related to old contrivances which have been patented over and over again."

Many of these inventions recall a story of the Duke of Wellington, who was examining a steam rocket invented and patented by a Jacob Perkins in 1824. This device consisted of an iron case with a stick like that of a rocket. The case was