Observe in charging your Rocket, at every quarter of an ounce of Ingredients or thereabouts, you ram it down very hard, forcing your Rammer with a wooden Mallet, or some weighty piece of Wood, but no Iron or Stone, for fear any Sparkles of Fire fly out and take your Combustible Matter; so fill it by degrees: If you design neither to place Stars, Quills, or small Rockets on its Head, you may put in about an Inch and a half of dry Powder for the Bounce, but if you are to place the fore-mention’d things on the Head of a great Rocket, you must close down the Paper or Paste-board very hard, and prick two or three holes with a Bodkin, that it may give fire to them when it Expires, placing a large Cartoush or Paste-board on the head of the Rocket, into which you must put the Stars or small Rockets, Paper-Serpents, or Quill-Serpents; of which I shall speak more hereafter.
Note further, That if you would have your Rocket sparkle much, you must put some grosly bruised Salt peter into the Composition; but then it must not lie long before it be let off, for fear it give and damp the Powder. If you would have it leave a blue Stream, as it ascends, put fine beaten and sifted Sulphur into it, but of neither of these more than a third part of Charcole; and in this manner greater and lesser Rockets are made, but the lesser must have more Powder and less Charcole than the greater, by a fifth part in six.
Golden Rain, and Golden Hair.
For Golden Rain, or streams of fire, that will, when at height, descend in the Air like Rain: Take large Goose-Quills, take only the hollow Quill as long as may be, fill it with beaten Powder and Charcole; as for the Air Rocket only add a little Powder of Sulphur. Being hard filled to a quarter of an Inch, stop that with wet Powder, called Wild-fire; place as many as you think convenient on the Head of a great Rocket, pasted on in a Rowl of Paper, so that it may not fall off till the Rocket bursts, there being a little dry Powder in it to force the end when the stream of fire ceases, at which time they taking, will appear like a shower of Fire of a golden Colour, spreading themselves in the Air, and then tending directly downwards. This is to be considered when you stand directly, or something near under them; but if you are at some distance, then they will appear to you like the Blazing Tail of a Comet or Golden Hair.
Silver Stars, How to make them.
To make Stars that will expand in Flame, and appear like natural Stars in the Firmament for a time: Take half a Pound of Salt-peter, the like quantity of Brimstone, finely beaten together, sifted and mingled with a quarter of a Pound of Gunpowder so ordered: Then wrap up the Composition in Linnen Rags or fine Paper, to the quantity of a Walnut, bind them with small Thread, and prick holes in the Rag or Paper with a Bodkin, and place six or ten of them on the Head of a great Rocket, as you did the Quills, and when the Rocket expires, they take fire and spread into a Flame, hovering in the Air like Stars, and descend leisurely till the matter is spent that gives them light.


