compounds from the imperfections of the processes of manufacturing
saltpetre, also given in the same book, say:--"One sees how much there
is that is providential in the progress of human invention. If man had,
in the first instance, a powder as strong as at present, he would
probably have been unable to master this force, or to use it with
suitable instruments, and the discovery would have remained without
application. We see that, thanks to the primitive impurity of the
saltpetre, man employed mixtures of it with sulphur and charcoal, which
produced a force suitable for throwing to short distances feeble parcels
of incendiary matter. This force increased little by little, as men
became better able to refine saltpetre, and ends by enabling them to
employ it for throwing projectiles."

We have frequently heard the word providential applied in a strange
manner; but this is one of the most novel views of providential
intervention we happen to have met with. The quiet gravity with which
Providence is assumed to have interfered in favour of the progress of
destructive implements, is about as instructive an instance of the
unconscious devotion of an author to his speciality as could easily be
selected.

In the treatise of 1561 are some receipts, assumed to be taken from
works of an earlier date, in which saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, are
submitted to a considerable degree of heat. The following is one:--"Take
of saltpetre 100 lbs., sulphur, 25 lbs., charcoal, 25 lbs., put them
altogether, and make them boil well, until the whole be well united, and
then you will thus have a strong powder." Mixed in these proportions,
and submitted to such a temperature, the chance of explosion is very
great; and, as our authors observe, "the essential fact of the tradition
respecting the invention of gunpowder is confirmed;" or rather,
strictly speaking, the probability of its truth is strengthened. We
therefore do not see very clearly why they should be anxious to divest
Schwartz of the merit of its discovery, while they produce arguments to
show the probability of the discovery being so made. The results of
these arguments would only tend to show that the tradition is not
sufficiently explicit, in not stating why the three ingredients were
mixed together; and Schwartz would, according to this view, be regarded
as the first who remarked and applied, or suggested the application of
gunpowder, as supplying an explosive projective force.