That fireworks are popular there is no doubt; no form of amusement is capable of giving enjoyment to so many people at one time; there is no entertainment which so appeals to youth and age of all classes and tastes. And yet it is doubtful if there is an industry concerning which the public at large is so profoundly ignorant.
To the average onlooker any firework which rises in the air is a rocket, any that revolve are catherine wheels; both of these assumptions are incorrect.
What is the average conception of a firework factory? A building, let us say, in which workmen, with sleeves rolled up, are busily engaged in shovelling heaps of gunpowder. How many know that a firework factory consists of dozens of small buildings, the construction of which is exactly defined by law, separated by spaces also specified by law; that workmen may not roll up their sleeves in the danger buildings; or that the amount of gunpowder in each building is strictly limited to a small quantity? All of these restrictions being enforced with the view, of course, of limiting the effects of any explosion that may occur.
So far as I am aware, no history of the art has yet been written. It is true that during the nineteenth century many text-books on pyrotechny were written, but the historical side of the subject has been generally represented by a few disjointed remarks in the prefaces.
My object has not been to write a text-book on firework-making, but rather to trace the art from earliest times, and to give a description of the development and process of manufacture. For those interested in the subject, and desiring fuller information, the list of MSS. and books given in the Bibliography at the end of this volume may be found useful.
My excuse for adding another volume to the literature of the art is that I am of the eighth generation of a family of pyrotechnists, whose work, I venture to claim, has not been without its effect. If I succeed in interesting, and in some degree enlightening, my readers, I shall feel I have not written in vain; if I fail, I shall know it is not in my choice of subject but in my capacity for dealing with it.
A. St. H. BROCK.
Sutton,
August, 1922.