Greek-fire; this composition will, in certain proportions, if charged into a strong tube, give intermittent bursts, projecting blazing masses of the mixture to a considerable distance. The writer has seen this effect produced in a steel mortar of 5-1/2 inches diameter, the masses of composition being thrown a distance of upwards of a hundred yards, a considerable range in the days of close warfare. Anyone who has seen this phenomenon will at once realise that here probably is the true solution of many obscure early references to explain which so much ingenuity has been expended.
An interesting fact which seems to have escaped the notice of writers on this subject is that Theresa, daughter of Alfonso V. King of Leon and the Asturias (A.D. 999), when married to Abdallah, King of Toledo, took for device on her coat of arms a mortar in which a powder is being pounded. This powder is supposed to represent gunpowder, a supposition which is supported by the motto, "Minima maxima fecit" (A little makes much). If gunpowder is intended, this must be one of the earliest references to its quality of exploding, and it is difficult to explain the meaning otherwise.
Richard Cœur de Lion used Greek-fire on his galley at the siege of Acre in 1191, and it is thought by many that it was introduced into Western Europe by the Crusaders, who had learned its use in the East.
Alfonso Duke of Ferrara had as his coat of arms a bomb-shell in flight, and Antoine de Lalaing, Count of Hooghstraeten, had a bomb-shell exploding in water. The adoption of these two devices at about the same time (1540) seems to indicate that this projectile was coming into use, that is to say, for military purposes at least.
An early reference to shell appears in Stowe's Chronicles (1565). He mentions two foreigners, Peter Brand and Peter Van Cullen, a gunsmith, in the employ of Henry VIII (A.D.
