Explosives . ments have been made with regard to the antiquity of gunpowder The Indians,in India upon similarly incorrect evidence. It is improbable that the refiningof saltpetre can have been discovered in India, as the habits of mind of theeducated classes would prevent their interesting themselves in such the institution of caste would render it impossible for them to handlemany of the materials involved. But the same institution has enabled thesaltpetre industry to be developed very widely, when once the process hadbeen discovered elsewhere and introduced, as a special caste of
Explosives . ments have been made with regard to the antiquity of gunpowder The Indians,in India upon similarly incorrect evidence. It is improbable that the refiningof saltpetre can have been discovered in India, as the habits of mind of theeducated classes would prevent their interesting themselves in such the institution of caste would render it impossible for them to handlemany of the materials involved. But the same institution has enabled thesaltpetre industry to be developed very widely, when once the process hadbeen discovered elsewhere and introduced, as a special caste of saltpetreworkers was formed, and India still supplies a large proportion of the saltpetreused. The saltpetre at first must have been very impure, as the methodsof refining it were crude. About 1249 Roger Bacon wrote an account of the composition and maun- Friar Baconfact ure of saltpetre and gunpowder in his Dc Secrctis and Opus in the former work are fairly full, but were concealed by means of. Fig. 1. Portrait of Roger Bv.(By kind permission of Lord Sackville, from a photograph by H. K. Corke.) 16 EARLY HISTORY 17 ciphers, which, however, have been deciphered by Colonel Hime with Bacons .statements, when not cryptic, are generally vague. In his Opus Tcrtium, written about 1250, a clearer passage has recentlybeen found by Prof. P. Duhem in a fragment discovered in the BibliothequeNationale, Paris. The following free translation has been published byColonel Hime in the journal of the Royal Artillery for July 1911 : From the flashing and flaming of certain igneous mixtures and theterror inspired by their noise wonderful consequences ensue. As a simpleexample may be mentioned the noise and flame generated by the powder,known in divers places, composed of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. Whena quantity of this powder no bigger than a mans finger is wrapped up ina piece of parchment and ignited, it explodes with a blinding flash and astunning noise.
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