On observing the blue-lights which you have purchased, each will be found to have attached to it at the burning end a screw of soft paper, usually blue. This I hardly need tell any English boy is touch-paper, made by saturating soft paper with solution of nitre and drying. Firework cases are usually finished off with touch-paper, so that they may ignite immediately. When you send up such an arrangement of blue-lights as just described, the proposition will be to ignite them all at once with a flash, and after the lapse of a period of time which must be left to your own discretion. Quickmatch spread from end to end of each blue-light, and there secured, either by thread or else a slip of paper pasted loopwise over it, will accomplish the first, and a suitable length of Bickford’s fuse the second. All this is obvious, but a diagram is given ([Fig. 13]). Hardly necessary is it to tell you that we want no car when using this device. A wire being passed through the middle of the cork hooked at one end, for attachment to hooked cross wires, and bent at the other end so that it shall not slip through the cork, are also obvious matters.
You will observe that I have represented the quickmatch as actually running through the Bickford transversely. This is the surest plan in this and all similar cases, because the walls of the Bickford are so thick that some time must elapse before they burn quite through. Transverse perforation and stretching out of the Bickford can easily be done, the walls of the fuse being very tough. Though my remarks have been directed to blue-lights only, yet obviously the arrangement applies to any other variety of tint.
Fig. 14.
2. Dropping firework devices.—Some of the prettiest balloon firework effects are those which do not light until they have separated from the balloon and fallen through a varying distance, according to your arrangement. I shall not expect to find that you think it necessary to inquire how all this may be managed after what I have written about Bickford fuse and quickmatch. However, some few remarks about a certain convenience of arrangement may not come amiss. Suppose, then, that you have launched your balloon carrying several devices—we will assume it to carry six. You want the first of these devices to part company with the balloon, and shortly after ignite in falling, all to time. You want the successive five to part company with the balloon also to time. Obviously a length of Bickford fuse will accomplish all this, but there are inconvenient as well as convenient ways of arranging all. A convenient way is this ([Fig. 14]).
When I have told you this diagram represents a thing made of wire, and you are so to use it that a fall shall take place at every corner, you will see that all can be managed by Bickford fuse.
Amongst the fireworks that are effective when thus falling are small blue-lights, squibs, crackers, maroons, stars, but more especially catherine wheels. All explosive fireworks give a shock when exploded—maroons a great shock. Never, then, use a balloon-attached firework in such manner as that it shall explode whilst attached to the balloon, the steadiness of which it would certainly affect—perhaps cause a tongue of flame to come in contact with the paper and set it on fire. A wirework arrangement such as our diagram represents is only intended to carry six successive devices, and for the devices that have been noted you will most likely find that about half-a-dozen will make up the total weight your balloon can carry. But there are certain lighter fireworks, of which considerably more than six may be carried; for example, stars. If you take a star and enclose it in a tissue-paper bag, together with a very little—say half a saltspoonful of mealed, or powdered, gunpowder; then, if you tie the mouth of the bag round a short length of quickmatch, you see what must happen when the flame of a Bickford fuse sets the free end of the quickmatch alight. You will rig up the stars with their bags on wire cross-work as already described, but you will arrange that the successive ignitions follow a spiral course, like that of a loosely-coiled watch spring.
I think I have told you as much as can be profitable about the making of fire-balloons, so a few words now about parachutes. People who ascend in the cars of large balloons sometimes vary the display by cutting connection with the balloon itself when at a certain height, and coming down by aid of a parachute. Parachutes used on these occasions are somewhat elaborate things, bearing a general resemblance to an umbrella deprived of its stick and ribs, having a cord attached to the spot where the terminal of each rib, if present, would have been, these cords all converging to join at their lower ends with a car.
Fig. 15.