A

David

Darling

black powder

Black powder was the oldest of explosives, more commonly known today as gunpowder though it was first used by the Chinese in firecrackers and to propel black-powder rockets (see Chinese fire-arrows) long before guns were invented. Its ingredients are saltpeter, or potassium nitrate (about 75%), charcoal (about 15%), and sulfur (about 10%). Knowledge of the explosive spread from China and other parts of the far East to the Arab world and then to Western Europe by the mid-thirteenth century. Its preparation was described, for example, by Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus.