Having arrived at a pyrotechnic composition, attempt to use it in other ways besides fire-making would naturally follow, and sooner or later the idea of filling the mixture into tubes would suggest itself, especially as both in India and China (in one of which countries pyrotechny undoubtedly originated) a serviceable tube—or to use the modern term “case”—was ready to hand in any size or quantity in the ubiquitous bamboo. The bamboo is in use for the purpose at the present day in the East, and until recent times, when displaced by European weapons, was used in the construction of ordnance of considerable size. Mortars used for throwing firework shell up to six or more inches in diameter are still in use in Japan and China, the barrel consisting of a section of bamboo strengthened on the outside with a binding of split cane. [Illustration] Having reached the point of charging composition into a tube, that is to say confining it, a more or less violent explosion was likely or rather certain to follow during the course of the experiments, which might suggest the use of a tube as a means of discharging a projectile. This would lead to research in the direction of the best composition for the purpose and the evolution of gunpowder. It must be remembered that the constituents of gunpowder must be present in approximately exact proportion, whereas with primitive pyrotechnic compositions, if the ingredients saltpetre and charcoal are present, it is almost impossible to fail in getting some result. The above suggestion must not be taken literally as a statement of fact, but rather as an attempt on the part of the writer to trace the stages by which pyrotechnic and explosive compositions came to be evolved. If one disabuses one’s mind of the curiously widespread belief that all fireworks are composed chiefly of gunpowder, and that without the invention of gunpowder fireworks could not have been constructed, it seems far more likely that pyrotechny is based on the discovery of the assistance given to combustion by saltpetre, than on the discovery of gunpowder. CHAPTER II PYROTECHNY IN THE EAST Pyrotechny undoubtedly had its genesis in the East, and for that reason we will deal with its development there first. As he has intended to convey, the writer is strongly of opinion that the discovery of pyrotechnic compositions antedated that of gunpowder. In many cases earlier writers have discovered passages which they consider prove the use of firearms and gunpowder; in reality these refer to Greek-fire and similar compositions, which were used as projectiles, being thrown from machines or catapults, and not as propellants. Gunpowder as a mixture of ingredients may have been known from remote times, as undoubtedly were other simple pyrotechnic compositions, but all evidence goes to show that its use as a propellant was not known until well into the Christian Era.