Home › Pyrotechny › Colored Lights
Colored Lights
We derive the is to continue for some time, it must further receipts for these from the same source as the be considered that large quantities of the mix- open fires. (See No. 2106.) Colored lights ture form a correspondingly greater amount are formed by filling cylinders of thin writing EXPLOSIVES. and then thrown into the air, will produce a brilliant flash, and leave no perceptible ash.
The color is given by saturating the gun-paper in the one of the solutions given below, and then drying it.
A solution of chlorate of strontium makes the flash a bright crimson. Chlorate of barium, green. Nitrate of potassium, violet. Chlorate of copper, blue. Any one of the foregoing chlorates may be prepared by mixing a warm paper of about an inch in diameter with the mixtures. The length of the cylinder determines the duration of the light. The mixtures may be moistened and pounded into the cylinder with a wooden rod; after drying, they will then be hard enough to allow of the removal of the paper, and may be further strengthened by being dipped in or painted over with mucilage of gum-arabic. The cylinders, when finished, are tied to the upper end of sticks fastened in the ground in a vertical solution of the corresponding chloride with an position. The mixtures vary essentially from equivalent quantity of a warm solution of those used for colored fires. chlorate of potassa; the precipitate formed