There are also many other methods of making powder silent, according to report, by using camphor or touchwood instead of charcoal, or by adding to the common powder burnt paper, hay seed, &c. When any of these ingredients are to be mixed with common powder, grind them together, and make them into grains.
To make Gun-powder of different Colours.
Notwithstanding the repeated trials and experiments made by the greatest artists, to add to the strength of gun-powder, all have proved without success, and most of them have agreed that the present powder will not admit of a fourth ingredient; therefore it is evident, that any thing being mixed with the present composition of gun-powder, would rather reduce it’s strength than add to it; consequently coloured powder must be weaker than black; so that the making of powder of different colours, is only a fancy that serves to please the curious, without any other effect.
To make Gun-powder white.
To six pound of salt-petre, add one pound of the pith of an elder tree, well dryed and pulverised, with a sufficient quantity of brimstone to make it into powder, which you will find in the composition of gun-powder, or an ounce of the salt of tartar, calcined till it comes white, and then boiled in clear water, till the water is all evaporated.
To make Powder red.
Boil in water some brasil wood or Vermillion and a pound of chopped paper; and, when boiled for some time to draw out the colour, dry and meal it with a pound of sulphur, and eight pound of saltpetre.
Or, to six pound of saltpetre, put one pound of sulphur, and half a pound of amber, and blood stone one pound.
To make Yellow Powder.
Take eight pound of saltpetre, and one pound of sulphur, to which add one pound of wild saffron, that has been boiled in aqua vitæ, and afterwards made dry and mealed.