CHAPTER II.
ON GUNPOWDER.
Gunpowder being the base on which the superstructure of this treatise is to be raised, the history, the use, and the nature of this explosive compound, are here placed in the foreground; as it is essential to the correct conception of the various matters hereafter to be explained, that the reader be first acquainted with the one grand principle in fire-arms, the propellant power of explosion.
Gunpowder, whether considered relatively to engines of war, or to those arms used with so much success in the sporting field, has, since its first introduction, been a source of much and frequent discussion. In regard to its origin, we shall not much enlarge, nor repeat the many suppositions and conjectures promulgated by the searchers after antiquarian evidence.
The inhabitants of India were unquestionably acquainted with its composition at an early date. Alexander is supposed to have avoided attacking the Oxydracea, a people dwelling between the Hyphasis and Ganges, from a report of their being possessed of supernatural means of defence: “For,” it is said, “they come not out to fight those who attack them, but those holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrow their enemies with tempests and thunderbolts shot from their walls;” and, when the Egyptian Hercules and Bacchus overran India, they attacked these people, “but were repulsed with storms of thunderbolts and lightning hurled from above.” This is, no doubt, evidence of the use of gunpowder; but as it is unprofitable to investigate this subject further, we shall merely confine ourselves to the European authorities.
Many ascribe the discovery of gunpowder to Roger Bacon, the monk, who was born at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in the year 1214, and is said to have died in 1285. No doubt he was by far the most illustrious, the best informed, and the most philosophical of all the alchemists. In the 6th chapter of his Epistles of the Secrets of Arts, the following passage occurs—“For sounds like thunder, and flashes like lightning, may be made in the air, and they may be rendered even more horrible than those of nature herself. A small quantity of matter, properly manufactured, and not larger than the human thumb, may be made to produce a horrible noise; and this may be done many ways, by which a city or an army may be destroyed, as was the case when Gideon and his men broke their pitchers and exhibited their lamps, fire issuing out of them with great force and noise, destroying an infinite number of the army of the Midianites.” And in the 11th chapter of the same epistle occurs the following passage:—“Mix together saltpetre with luru mone cap ubre, and sulphur, and you will make thunder and lightning, if you know the method of mixing them.” Here all the ingredients of gunpowder are mentioned, except charcoal; which is, doubtless, concealed under the barbarous terms used; indeed, the anagram is easily converted into carbonum pulvere, with a little attention.
This discovery has also been attributed to Schwartz, a German monk, and the date of 1320 annexed to it; a date posterior to that which may be justly claimed for Friar Bacon; and as accident is stated to have been the means by which he discovered it, we have taken that incident as the subject of an [illustration].
