Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/45

 neighbours. Firework displays carried out by them are nowadays more or less crude attempts to reproduce European work.

The writer has seen a set piece evidently intended to follow a fire picture seen in a European display carried out by small wicks burning in oil instead of the "lances," as the small fireworks used to outline the pictures are called in this country.

In India as in China fireworks play a frequent part in religious and civil ceremonies. In the former country, at certain festivals, a primitive device for producing a series of reports is used. These are called "adirvedis," and consist of a series of short iron tubes fitted to a wooden plank, charged with gunpowder and tamped with clay.

At weddings, crackers are largely used under a variety of names, such as Vengagvedi, Gola, Pataka or Koroo. To-day these are simple crackers filled with country-made gunpowder or the imported Chinese crackers. Formerly almost the only composition used was chlorate of potash and one of the sulphides of arsenic. A favourite form consisted of a small quantity of the two ingredients put together unmixed into a piece of rag with some small stones or grit and tied. The resulting fireworks were similar to the "throw-down" crackers sold in this country.

Owing to the very large number of accidents caused by the casual methods, both in manufacture and use, with this highly sensitive composition, H.M. Chief Inspector of Explosives for India endeavoured, in 1902, to secure its prohibition, as was done in this country in 1895, but it was not until 1910, when it had been established that this composition was being used by anarchists, that it was finally prohibited.

The most successful effect produced by Hindoo pyrotechnists is the "Tubri." The composition is here known as