During the Ancient Period, say 1250-1450, when serpentine was exclusively used, one powder could only differ from another in composition, that is, in the proportions of the ingredients used, supposing them to be equally pure; during the Modern Period, say 1700-1886, the powders used (in each individual State) differed only, as a general rule, in the size of the grain;[461] during the Transition Period, 1450-1700, they generally differed both in composition and grain. The proportions of the ingredients were quite arbitrary during the Ancient Period, and not only Governments, but private manufacturers, had their special recipes. As late as 1628 Norton says there were “infinite recipes for making of powder, but most states have enjoyned a certain proportion.”[462] The introduction of corning, far from curbing the lawlessness of the Ancient Period, made confusion worse confounded. _Then_ there was but one variable—the proportions of the ingredients; _now_ a second independent variable was introduced—the size of the grain. But a reaction was at hand, which set in first in France, where corned powder had been adopted in 1525.[463] It appears to have been noticed during the second half of the fifteenth century that large-grained powder was the fittest for big guns, and this fact the French utilised in 1540 by officially restricting the service powders to three, of uniform composition but different-sized grains.[464] The largest-grained powder was used for the largest guns, and the composition was 80.7 salp., 11.5 char., and 7.8 sulph., which closely corresponded to Whitehorne’s (corned) hand-gun powder—78.3 salp., 13 char., and 8.7 sulph.[465] It may be questioned, however, whether the French, official injunctions notwithstanding, confined themselves very religiously to powders of uniform composition. Boillot, whose work was published at Chaumont in 1598, says the grain for big guns was as large as a pea, that for medium guns the size of hempseed, and that for serpents, &c., still smaller. But from a remark he makes on reaching the manufacture of powder—“vous viendrez à la composition (de la pouldre), mais par poix et mesure, selon que vous voudrez faire les pouldres”[466]—it is clear that powders for all purposes were not of the same composition. During the first half of the seventeenth century the French official powder was weaker than the above—75.6 salp., 13.6 char., and 10.8 sulph.—and for big guns had grains as large as hazel-nuts.[467] At Pont-à-Mousson, just across the German border, powders of different compositions were in use in 1620;[468] and east of the Rhine powder for different guns probably varied in grain, and certainly varied in composition. “Of the various powders now made,” says Furtenbach in 1627, “the following are generally employed:[469]—