GUNPOWDER AND
AMMUNITION

GUNPOWDER AND
AMMUNITION
THEIR ORIGIN AND PROGRESS

BY
LIEUT.-COLONEL HENRY W. L. HIME
(LATE) ROYAL ARTILLERY


LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1904

All rights reserved

CONTENTS

TABLES

BOOKS OFTEN QUOTED

The following works are frequently quoted, and are only designated by the author’s name. Thus, “Elliot,” ii. 75, means Sir H. M. Elliot’s “Hist. of India, as told, &c. &c.,” vol. ii. p. 75.

Bacon, Roger, Opera quædam hactenus inedita, ed. by Professor Brewer; Rolls Series, 1859.

Berthelot, M. P. E., La Chimie au Moyen Age, Paris, 1893.

Brackenbury, Lieut.-General Sir H., G.C.B., “Ancient Cannon in Europe,” in vols. iv. and v. of Proceed. Roy. Artillery Institution, Woolwich, 1865-6.

Elliot, Sir H. M., “Hist. of India, as told by its own Historians,” ed. by Professor J. Dowson, M.R.A.S., London, 1867-77.

Jähns, Oberst-Lieut. M., Handbuch einer Geschichte des Kriegswesens, Leipsig, 1880.

Napoleon III., Études sur le Passé et l’Avenir de l’Artillerie, Paris, 1846-71.

Nye, Master-Gunner N., “Art of Gunnery,” to which is added a “Treatise on Artificial Fireworks” (separately paginated), London, 1647.

Reinaud (Professor) et Favé (Capitaine), Du Feu Grégeois, &c., Paris, 1845.

Romocki, S. J. von, Geschichte der Explosivstoffe, Hanover, 1895.

Whitehorne, P., “Certain Waies for the ordering of Souldiers in Battelray,” London, 1560.

PART I

THE ORIGIN OF GUNPOWDER

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I

Much discussion has been caused in the past by the vagueness of the word gunpowder. The following are the meanings which this and a few other words bear in these pages:—

Explosion.—The sudden and violent generation, with a loud noise and in a time inappreciable by the unaided senses, of a very great volume of gas, by the combustion of a body occupying a comparatively very small volume.

Progressive Combustion.—Combustion which takes place in a time appreciable by the unaided senses, such as that of rocket composition or a bit of paper.

Gunpowder.—A mixture of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, which explodes. The signs of its explosion are a bright flash, a loud noise, and a large volume of smoke.

Incendiary (for “incendiary composition”).—A substance or mixture which burns progressively, although fiercely, and is hard to put out.

Machine always means an apparatus of the ballista type.

Cannon includes bombards, mortars, guns, &c.

Musket includes all hand firearms charged with gunpowder.

II

Of the many difficulties that beset the present inquiry, two deserve special mention.

The first is the want of simple exactness in most early writers when recording the facts from which we have to draw our conclusions. At times their descriptions are so meagre that it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether certain projectiles were incendiary or explosive. At other times they abound in tropes and figures of speech which amount to an unintentional suggestio falsi. “The missiles spread themselves abroad like a cloud,” says a Spanish Arab; “they roar like thunder; they flame like a furnace; they reduce everything to ashes.”1 A projectile full of blazing Greek fire appeared to Joinville to be of portentous bulk. It flew through the midnight sky with thundering noise like a fiery dragon, followed by a long trail of flame; and it illumined the whole camp as with the light of day.2 Even to approach the truth, we must prune such figures of rhetoric; and this is a dangerous operation, for we may prune too much. The only safeguard against these suggestive metaphors is to keep steadily in view the distinctive peculiarities of incendiary and explosive projectiles.

The incendiary shell was simply an envelope intended to convey into the interior of a fort, ship, &c., a quantity of combustible matter, which burned with such violence as to set fire to everything inflammable that was near it. The primary object of the explosive shell, on the other hand, was to blow up whatever it fell upon. It might occasionally, by the intense heat generated by the explosion,3 set fire to its surroundings when inflammable; but this was a mere incidental consequence of its action. Its aim and end was to explode.

When a musket or cannon was fired there was a bright flash, a loud, momentary report, and a large volume of smoke.4 When an incendiary missile was discharged from a machine there was no flash, but little smoke, and the only sounds were the whizzing and sputtering of the burning mixture and the creaking and groaning of bolts, spars, ropes, &c.:—

An explosive missile made its way through the air with little noise6 and less light:7 during its flight the blazing contents of the incendiary shell doubtless gave out much light and made a considerable noise, as described by many early writers. When an explosive shell reached its object there was, sooner or later (if it acted at all), an explosion, occasionally followed by a conflagration: an incendiary shell produced a conflagration only.

The second difficulty arises from the change of meaning which many technical words have undergone in the lapse of years.

The Arabic word barúd originally meant hail, was afterwards applied to saltpetre, and finally came to signify gunpowder. Our own word powder, which at first meant a fine, floury dust (pulvis), is often used in the present day to designate the stringy nitrocelluloid, cordite—smokeless powder. The Chinese word yo means gunpowder now, although its first meaning was a drug or plant. For centuries gunpowder was called kraut in Germany, and to this day it is called kruid in Holland. The Danish krud has not long become obsolete.

The present Chinese word for firearm, huo p’áu, originally meant a machine for throwing blazing incendiary matter. The Arabic word bundúq at first meant a hazel-nut, secondly a clay-pellet the size of a hazel-nut, thirdly a bullet, and finally a firearm.8 The Latin nochus, a hazel-nut, is used, strange to say, to designate a smoke-ball by an old German military writer, Konrad Kyeser, whose “Bellifortis” dates from 1405.9 The word was also applied in Germany to bullets in general, and more particularly to projectiles discharged by machines.

The word Artillery, both in France and England, originally meant bows and arrows. In his original account of the battle of Cressy, Froissart calls the apparatus and bolts of the Genoese crossbowmen leur artillerie; while a few lines further on he speaks of the kanons of the English.10 Ascham, writing in 1571, says: “Artillerie nowadays is taken for two things: gunnes and bowes.”11 Selden reminds us that gonne, our present gun, at first meant a machine of the ballista type.12 It is used in this sense in “Kyng Alisaunder,” 3268, written A.D. 1275-1300, and other metrical romances. Like the Arabic bundúq, the word is occasionally applied to the projectile, as in the “Avowing of Arthur,” st. 65. It is used in the modern sense, as cannon, in the “Vision of Piers the Plowman,” Passus xxi, C text, 293, a poem begun in 1362 and finally revised by its author in 1390; and in all three meanings by Chaucer, in poems written during the last quarter of the fourteenth century;—as a machine in the “Romaunt of the Rose,” 4176, as a projectile in the “Legende of Good Women,” 637, and as a cannon in the “Hous of Fame,” 533.

“When the thing is perceived, the idea conceived,” says Professor Whitney, “(men) find in the existing resources of speech the means of its expression—a name which formerly belonged to something else in some way akin to it; a combination of words,” &c.13 For example, a word, W, which has always been the name of a thing, M, is applied to some new thing, N, which has been devised for the same use as M and answers the purpose better.14 W thus represents both M and N for an indefinite time,15 until M eventually drops into disuse and W comes to mean N and N only. The confusion necessarily arising from the equivocal meaning of W during this indefinite period, is entirely due, of course, to neglect of Horace’s advice to coin new names for new things.16 Had a new name been given to N from the first, no difficulty could possibly have ensued, and our way would have been straight and clear. But as matters have fallen out, not only have we to determine whether W means M or N, whenever it is used during the transition period,17 but we have to meet the arguments of those, never far off, who insist that because W meant N finally, it must have meant N at some bygone time when history and probability alike show that it meant M and M only. Examples, enough and to spare, of such arguments will be met with shortly.

In consequence of the change of meaning which many military words have suffered, no translation of passages in foreign books containing ambiguous words should be relied upon, if access to the originals, or faithful copies of them, can be obtained. As an example of the necessity for this precaution, let us compare a few sentences relating to the siege of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, from the “Polychronicon” of Higden (d. cir. 1363), Rolls Series, iv. 429 ff., with the translations of them by Trevisa, 1385, and by the author of MS. Harl. No. 2261, of A.D. 1432-50.

A

(1) Inde Vespasianus ictu arietis murum conturbat (Higden).

(2) Thanne Vaspacianus destourbed the wal with the stroke of an engyne (Trevisa).

(3) Wherefore Vespasian troublede the walle soore with gunnes and other engynes (MS. Harl.).

B

(1) Josephus tamen ardenti oleo superjecto omnia machinamenta exussit (Higden).

(2) But Joseph threwe out brennynge oyle uppon alle her gynnes and smoot all her gynnes (Trevisa).

(3) Then Josephus destroyede alle theire instruments in castenge brennenge oyle on hit (MS. Harl.).

C

(1) Quo viso tanta vis telorum ex parte Titi proruit, ut unius de sociis Josephi occipitium lapide percussum ultra tertium stadium excuteretur (Higden).

(2) Whan that was i-seie there fil so gret strenthe of castynge and of schot of Titus his side, that the noble knyght of oon of Josephus his felowes was i-smyte of that place with a stoon and flewe over the thrydde forlong (Trevisa).

(3) Titus perceyvenge that, sende furthe a sawte and schotte gunnes to the walles in so much that the hynder parte of the hedde of a man stondenge by Josephus was smyten by the space of thre forlonges (MS. Harl.).

D

(1) Admotis tandem arietibus ad templum (Higden).

(2) At the laste the engynes were remeved toward the temple (Trevisa).

(3) Titus causede his gunners to schote at the Temple (MS. Harl.).

No suspicion rests upon either of these translators; yet, were the original lost, a covert allusion to cannon might be discovered in Trevisa’s translation of B and C, and the Harleian translation of A, C, and D would be put forward as proof positive of their use.

III

The claims of the Greeks to the invention of gunpowder are examined in Chap. III. Chap. IV. is an inquiry into the nature and authorship of the Liber Ignium of Marcus Græcus. The claims of the Arabs, Hindus, Chinese, and English are considered in Chaps. V.-VIII. In Part II. the progress of Ammunition is very briefly traced from the introduction of cannon to the introduction of breechloading arms.

As the book is addressed to the officers of the Army, who seldom have a library at command, the authorities for the statements of important facts are generally given at length. On all controversial points, when a foreign authority is quoted the original18 is given as well as the translation. I have endeavoured to acknowledge my obligation in all cases where quotations have been borrowed from others without verification.

The invention of gunpowder was impossible until the properties of saltpetre had become known. We proceed, therefore, in the following chapter to determine the approximate date of the discovery of this salt.

CHAPTER II

SALTPETRE

The attention of the ancients was naturally attracted by the efflorescences which form on certain stones, on walls, and in caves and cellars; and the Hindus and nomad Arabs must have noticed the deflagration of at least one of them when a fire was lit on it. These efflorescences consist of various salts,—sulphate and carbonate of soda, chloride of sodium, saltpetre, &c.—but they are so similar in appearance and taste, the only two criteria known in primitive times,19 that early observers succeeded in discriminating only one of them, common salt, from the rest. So close, in fact, is the resemblance between potash and soda, that their radical difference was only finally established by Du Hamel in 1736. Common salt received a distinctive name in remote times; all other salts were grouped together under such vague generic names as nitrum, natron, afro-nitron, &c.

No trace of saltpetre has hitherto been found anywhere before the thirteenth century. The Greek alchemists of preceding centuries are silent. There is no saltpetre in the earliest recipe we possess for Greek fire, No. 26 of the Liber Ignium,20 ascribed to one Marcus Græcus, either as given in the Paris MSS. of 1300, or in the Munich MS. of 1438. It is true that the phrase sal coctus in this recipe has been translated by saltpetre in M. Hœfer’s untrustworthy Histoire de la Chimie, but as MM. Reinaud and Favé remark: “Rien n’autorise à traduire ainsi; le sel ordinaire a été souvent employé dans les artifices.”21 There is no instance in Latin, I believe, of saltpetre being designated otherwise than by sal petræ (or petrosus), or by nitrum, singly or in combination with some other word, as spuma nitri. The substitution of sal petræ for sal coctus, in later editions of the recipe, only shows that when the valuable properties of saltpetre became known it was employed instead of common salt. The very fact of the change having been made by most of the later alchemists, proves that to them sal coctus did not mean sal petræ, but something else. If sal coctus had meant sal petræ, what need was there for the change? This change, however, was not universal. In the version of recipe 26, given in the Livre de Canonnerie et Artifice de Feu, published in Paris in 1561, but written long before by a fire-worker well acquainted with saltpetre, we find: “prenez soufre vif, tarte, farcocoly (sarcocolla), peghel (pitch), sarcosti (sal coctum), &c.”22 The word coquo (to boil or evaporate) was necessarily connected with the preparation of common salt by evaporation,23 and coctus would correctly distinguish evaporated or artificial salt from natural or rock salt. In his “Natural History,” xxxi. 39 (7), Pliny tells us that salt is found round the edges of certain lakes in Sicily which are partially dried up in summer by the heat of the sun; while in Phrygia, where much greater evaporation takes place (ubi largius coquitur), a lake is dried up (and salt is deposited) to its very middle. Sal coctus was salt recovered from salt water by natural or artificial heat, as distinguished from natural, or rock salt, which was dug out of the ground.24

The Arab alchemists before the thirteenth century are as silent as the Greeks: nothing that can be identified with saltpetre is to be found in their voluminous works. The evidence of Geber, so often cited to prove that saltpetre was known to the Arabs in the ninth century, has been stripped of all authority by M. Berthelot, who has satisfactorily proved that there were two Gebers. The real Arab, Jabir, says nothing of saltpetre, but he mentions a salve used by naphtha-throwers25 as a safeguard against burns. The other Geber, or pseudo-Jabir, was acquainted with saltpetre, as well he might be; for he was a western who lived some time about the year 1300,26 and wrote a number of Latin works falsely purporting to be translations from the Arabic of the real Jabir. All doubt about the matter has been removed by M. Berthelot’s publication of the real Jabir’s Arabic writings.27 It has been also suspected that the sal Indicus of the Liber Sacerdotum, cir. tenth century,28 a salt again mentioned in the Liber Secretorum of Bubacar, cir. 1000,29 means saltpetre. Both these works are translations from the Arabic or Persian,30 and sal Indicus is the literal translation of the Persian—نمك هندي (nimaki Hindi) = نمك سياه (nimaki siyah) = salt of bitumen; a substance of the same family as the “salt of naphtha” also mentioned by Bubacar.

There is no word for saltpetre in classical Sanskrit, sauverchala being a generic term for natural salts, which corresponded to, and was as comprehensive as the nitrum, spuma nitri, &c., of the West. “Recent Sanskrit formulæ for the preparation of mineral acids containing nitre, mention this salt under the name of soraka. This word, however, is not met with in any Sanskrit dictionary, and is evidently Sanskritised from the vernacular sora, a term of foreign origin.”31 Both Professor H. H. Wilson and Professor M. Williams, in their Sanskrit dictionaries, “erroneously render yavakshara as saltpetre, as also does Colebrooke in his ‘Amara-kosha.’”32 The word means impure carbonate of potash obtained by the incineration of barley straw.33

At length, however, notwithstanding coarse scales and clumsy apparatus, the want of all means of registering time and temperature, and the absence of any general principle to guide them in their researches, the alchemists succeeded in differentiating certain natural salts from the rest, and among them saltpetre. The Chinese were acquainted with it about the middle of the thirteenth century.34 Abd Allah ibn al-Baythar, who died at Damascus in 1248, tells us that the flower of the stone of Assos was called Chinese snow by the Egyptian physicians and barūd (i.e. saltpetre) by the (Arab) people of the West.35 Friar Bacon, whose De Secretis was written before 1249, and Hassan er-Rammah who wrote 1275-95, were thoroughly acquainted with the salt. A grand chemical discovery had been made, and saltpetre became known from China to Spain.

The Egyptians thought fit to call saltpetre “Chinese snow,” but this does not justify the conclusion that the discovery was made by the Chinese. Consider our own phrases “Jerusalem” artichoke, “Welsh” onion, and “Turkey” cock. Jerusalem is a gardener’s corruption of girasole, the Turkey came from America, and the home of the Welsh onion is Siberia. The Persians called their native alkaline salt jamadi Chini, and no one will suggest that this substance came from China.

It is evident from the way in which it is mentioned by the alchemists of the thirteenth century, and from their primitive methods of refining it, that saltpetre was then in its infancy. Roger Bacon speaks of it as one would speak of a substance recently discovered and still little known—“that salt which is called saltpetre” (illius salis qui sal petræ vocatur).36 Marcus Græcus thought it necessary to explain what the word means, in his 14th recipe which probably belongs to the latter years of the thirteenth century.37 The methods of refining the salt given by Marcus and Hassan leave no possible doubt that in their time it had but just come into use. It is true that Bacon’s method was much superior, if the solution of his steganogram given in Chap. viii. be accepted. But it would have been past all explanation had the method of the greatest natural philosopher of the age been found to be no better than that of an Arabic druggist or a European fireworker.

As the matter is one of the greatest importance, the methods of all three are given in full, together with that of Whitehorne, 1560. The Waltham Abbey method is added, as a standard by which to judge them. To admit of easy comparison, the corresponding operations are marked with the same letter. The five methods are summed up in Table I.

Waltham Abbey, 1860.

A. Preparation of grough from natural saltpetre.38

Natural saltpetre is dissolved in boiling water, the insoluble impurities removed, and the solution evaporated by the sun or artificial heat. The solid residue is grough saltpetre, and contains 1 to 10 per cent. of impurities, consisting of the chlorides of potassium and sodium, sulphates of potash, soda, and calcium, vegetable matter, sand, and moisture.

B. Boiling the solution of grough saltpetre.

The grough saltpetre is placed in an open copper with a false bottom; water is added, and heat applied until the mixture boils at 110° C.

C. Removal of the insoluble impurities.

The scum which rises to the surface during this operation is removed by ladles; the sand and heavy impurities fall upon the false bottom, which is removed just before the mixture boils. The boiling is continued until the scum ceases to rise.

D. Second boiling of the solution.

Cold water is added; the solution is boiled for a few minutes, and then allowed to cool somewhat.

E. Filtration.

At 104.5° C. the mother liquid is transferred to a tank with holes in its bottom, closed by filters.

F. Use of wood-ash, charcoal, &c.

If the impurities prevent the liquid from passing freely through the filters, it is treated with glue, wood-ash, or, better, with a little animal charcoal, which seizes on the impurities and rises to the top as scum.

G. Crystallisation.

The mother liquid filters into the crystallising trough at 70.2° to 65.8° C.

H. Stirring the depositing solution.

The solution is kept in constant agitation by poles whilst cooling, in order that it may deposit in minute crystals, called saltpetre flour. Large crystals contain more or less of the impure mother liquid.

I. Washing and drying.

The agitation is discontinued at 25.8° C. and the mother liquid drawn off. The flour is drained on an inclined plane, transferred to a washing vat, where it is washed three times with cold water, and then finally dried.

Whitehorne, 1560.

A. Preparation of grough from natural saltpetre.

On the bottom of a vessel pierced with “three or fower littell holes” is placed a linen cloth, “or else the end of a broom, or some straw.” A layer of nitrified earth, “a spanne thicknesse,” is laid on this, and on the earth “three fingers’ thicknesse” of a mixture of “two parts of unslacked lime and three of oke asshes, or other asshes.... And so, putting one rewe” of saltpetre alternately with one of the mixture, “you shall fill the tubbe ... within a spanne of (its mouth), and the rest you will fill with water.” The water, on percolating through the mass, drips into a brass cauldron which, when two-thirds full, is boiled “till it come to one-third part or thereabouts. And after take it off and put it to settell in a great vessell,” when it is to be “clarified and from earthe and grosse matter diligentlie purged.”

B. Boiling the solution of grough saltpetre.

The solution is then “taken and boyled of new.”

F. Use of wood-ash, animal charcoal, &c.

When the solution boils and throws up scum, it is treated with a mixture of “3 parts of oke asshes and 1 of lime, together with 4 lbs. of rock alum to every 100 lbs. of the mother liquid.” “In a little time you shall see it alaie, both clear and fair and of an azure colour.”

C. Removal of insoluble impurities.

The heavy impurities, which sink to the bottom, are got rid of by pouring the clarified mother liquid into another vessel.

G. Crystallisation.

“Take it out and put it in vessels of woode or of earth that are rough within, with certain sticks of wood, to congeal.”

I. Washing and drying.

“This same saltpeter being taken from the sides of the vessel where it congealed, and in the water thereof washed, you must lay it upon a table to drie throughly.”

F´.39 Use of wood-ash, animal charcoal, &c.

“Minding to have (saltpetre) above the common use, for some purpose, more purified, &c. (which for to make exceeding fine powder, or aqua fortis, is most requisite so to be):—take of the aforesaid mixture (F) ... and for every barrel of water you have put in the cauldron ... you must put into it five potfulls” of the mixture. “In the same quantity of water so prepared, put so much saltpeter as it will dissolve.”

D. Second boiling of the solution.

Boil the whole until it “resolve very well.”

E. Filtration.

When the scum rises, transfer the mother liquid to a tub with holes in the bottom, on which is laid a linen cloth covered with a layer of sand four finger-breadths deep.

D´. Third boiling of the solution.

The filtered liquid is boiled again “in order to make the greater part of the water seeth away.... Make it boil so much until you see it ready to thicken, pouring in now and then a little of the mixture” (F).

G´. Final crystallisation.

The mother liquid is then transferred to wooden troughs “to congeal,” for which three or four days are allowed. “After this sort thou shalt make the saltpeter most white and fair, and much better than at the first setting.”

“Liber Ignium,” cir. 1300.

A. Preparation of grough from natural saltpetre.

If natural saltpetre is dissolved in boiling water, cleansed, and passed through a filter, and boiled for a day and a night; the (grough) saltpetre will be found deposited in crystals at the bottom of the vessel.

The original is as follows:—

“Nota, quod sal petrosum est minera terræ et reperitur in scrophulis contra lapides. Hæc terra dissolvitur in aqua bulliente, postea depurata et distillata per filtrum et permittatur per diem et noctem integram decoqui, et invenies in fundo laminas salis conielatas cristallinas.”40

Hassan er-Rammah, 1275-95.

A. Preparation of grough from natural saltpetre.

“Take white, clean, bright (natural) saltpetre ad lib., and two new (earthen) jars. Put the saltpetre into one of them, and add some water. Put the jar on a gentle fire until it gets warm” (and the saltpetre dissolves. Skim off) “the scum that rises” (and) “throw it away. Stir up the fire until the liquid becomes quite clear. Then pour it into the other jar in such a way that no scum remains attached to it. Place this jar on a low fire until the contents begin to coagulate. Then take it off the fire, and beat (the crystals) gently.”

F. Use of wood-ash, animal charcoal, &c.

“Take dry willow wood, burn it, and plunge it into water according to the recipe for its incineration. Take three parts by weight of the saltpetre” (just obtained), “and the third of a part of the wood-ash, which has been carefully pulverised, and put the mixture into a jar—if made of brass, so much the better.”

B. Boiling the solution of grough saltpetre.

“Add water and apply heat, until the ashes and saltpetre no longer adhere together. Beware of sparks.”

The original is as follows:—41