PYROTECHNY, pIefl-telleni (from Gk. viip, pyr, fire 1-1xpn, techne. art). The art of ing fireworks. The origin of pyrotechny is un known, but the art was early practiced in the East and has attained to the highest degree of perfection among the Chinese and Japanese. Al though inflamma-ble compositions, known as Greek fire, were used in European warfare before gunpowder had become known among the Western nations, fireworks, as now de nominated, became known to them about the middle of the fourteenth century, and we find record of their having been used as an accessory of public pageantry in 1588. The early development. of fireworks in Europe was due to the Florentines, and the Italians long re tained their supremacy in this field, since the popularity of pyrotechnic exhibitions was greatly increased during the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century through the in genuity of the fatuous Italians father and son, who charmed Rome and Paris by their displays.
The prime materials employed in the manu facture of fireworks are gunpowder, or its con stituents, charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre, or other oxidizing salts; metals and metallic salts which on burning give rise to various shaped sparks. or a brilliant light, or which impart color
to the flame; touch-paper and fuze or quick, match, by which the charges are ignited and inflamed; paper and wood from which to con struct the eases and sticks; and resin, cam phor, lycopodium, soaps, gum, lampblack, and similar bodies with which to modify the character of the reaction. In the use of gun powder three effects are produced—beat, light, and sound. To produce reports, as with crackers, the gunpowder is used in the granulated condition and strongly confined in the rolled paper envelope which it is to rupture. When, on the other hand, the gunpowder is first reduced to dust and then compacted by pressure in a case, with an open end when burning. as in a rocket or a pinwheel, it may burn with the evolu tion of light and heat and the production of gases which cause the rocket to rise or the pinwheel to revolve, but without a report.