In 1860 there were no less than six tubes in the service:—(1) the Common Quill Tube; (2) the Dutch Paper Tube; (3) the Common Metal Tube; (4) the Percussion Tube; (5) the Friction Tube; and (6) the Galvanic Tube.[599] _Time Fuzes._ Nothing can be less satisfactory than Hassan er-Rammah’s allusions to igniters, of which he possessed two—the _rose_ and the _ikreekh_ (اكريج). The latter word strictly means a duct, channel, or tube; but just as we frequently use _fuze_ for _fuze composition_, so the Arabs often use _ikreekh_ for the composition it contained. Hassan, for instance, speaks of “the sulphur with which one makes ikreekhs.”[600] It is quite clear, however, from Reinaud and Favé’s Plate II., fig. 24, that the ikreekh was of the nature of a fuze-case. Whether the composition given here in column 1 of Table XIII. was used in the ikreekh or the rose, I do not know. In fact our knowledge of these two igniters may be summed up in the statement that they were used together in the same (incendiary) shell, and that it was the rose which was lighted.[601] The ikreekh possibly contained the fuze composition proper, and the rose corresponded to our priming matter. Judging from the plates of Kyeser’s _Bellifortis_ reproduced by Herr von Romocki (i. 169), the igneous projectiles of 1405 were ignited by some slow-burning composition, which was put on the top of the charge, and filled up the loading hole flush with the exterior of the missile. The breech-loading quill fuze of the second Berlin Firebook, mentioned in the section on “Explosive Shell,” seems to have been only the abortive proposal of an inventor. The foregoing Arab and German igniters were for use in machine and hand projectiles, and we now reach cannon fuzes. The first igneous gun-missiles were incendiary, at once hand-grenades and cannon-balls, and were ignited by means of some slow-burning mixture, without a case, which was put into the shell on the top of its charge. When the missile is “neere full (of good come pouder),” says Bourne, “take some receite of soft fire worke that will not burne too hastily and fill up the rest of the ball.”[602] That the fuze-hole was originally placed next the cartridge is shown by Boillot’s repeated directions to turn it towards the muzzle[603]—directions which would have been superfluous had it not been previously customary to place it next the cartridge; and by many other indications. By this mode of loading the ignition of the fuze composition was ensured before the projectile left the piece. There was perhaps no absolute necessity for the use of this soft, slow-burning mixture, with incendiary shell so placed; but it was probably found very useful in confining the charge within the missile during flight.