The laboratory for pyrotechny may consist of a building, furnished with furnaces, boilers, &c. for the preparation or refining of saltpetre, and other substances for use; but according to its present acceptation, it is a place where all kinds of fire-works are prepared, both for actual service and for exhibition; such as, besides the ordinary works for show, quick matches, fuses, port-fire, grape-shot, case-shot, carcasses, hand granades, cartridges, &c. It should have tables, benches, and closets, where the tools, paper, thread, &c. may be commodiously placed, and an adjoining room to contain a supply of materials for two days' work. The chief artificer takes the weight of the materials made use of, attends to the weighing of the different substances, and sees that the mixtures are made properly, &c. He also keeps an account of the number and kinds of fire-works. The prepared fire-works ought to be removed daily to the magazine. If they are made up in the field, under a tent, (denominated the _Laboratory tent_,) they should be packed in barrels or in caissons. _Sec. I. Of Laboratory Tools and Utensils._ The following constitute the furniture and equipments of a laboratory: Copper rods, to load port fires, and the fuses of shells, howitzers, &c. Wooden formers, on which to roll the paper cases of the port fires. Wooden formers, to roll the cases of rockets. Balances, large and small, with weights, &c. Buckets to carry water. Boxes for loading priming tubes. Barrels with leather tops, that draw, in order to keep grained and meal gunpowder. Rods, or rammers for charging rockets. Brushes to wipe the tables and sweep the compositions together. Frames to dry priming tubes. Copper calibers to regulate the size of priming tubes. Penknives. Needles for piercing priming tubes in the direction of their length. Fuse drivers. Coopers' adzes. A copper kettle. Scissors for cloth and paper. Paper cutters. Priming wires. Skimmers for skimming the froth of boiling saltpetre. Funnels for charging port-fires, howitzers, shells, &c. Square ruler. Fuses for shells, &c. (or a lathe to make them.) Large and small wooden bowls. Small axes. Ladles for charging the fuses of shells, port-fires, &c. Mallets to hammer the fuses. Glue pots and brushes. Heavy mallets to beat the powder. Tin measures, of different sizes. Hand mortar. Foot rules. Rat-tail files to cleanse the interior of the reeds of priming tubes. Wooden rasps. Iron rulers, 1/2 foot long. Leather bags, in which gunpowder and charcoal are reduced to powder. Pocket saws. Pallet knives for saltpetre. Tables, small ones to mix the composition; large ones with a ledge to meal the powder on. Sieves, fine and common; of silk, and of hair. Fuse drawers. Tools for rolling cartridges. Gimblets of different sizes. The materials required more particularly for military fire-works, are: