222 GREEK FIRE GREELEY bitumen, sulphur, and pitch, and to have been poured from caldrons, or projected in fire balls, or on arrows and javelins around which flax was twisted saturated with the inflammable compound. It was vomited through long cop- per tubes from the prows of fire ships. These were themselves consumed, as they sent fire and destruction among the galleys of the enemy. For 400 years its secret was successfully pre- served by the Romans of the East, the ven- geance of heaven being imprecated upon whom- soever should divulge this composition, which the people were taught to believe was revealed by an angel to the first of the Constantines. The Mohammedans finally obtained the secret, and in the crusades turned the art against the Christians. Joinville in his Histoire de St. Louis describes the fire as coming through the nir like a winged long-tailed dragon, about the. thickness of a hogshead, with the report of thunder and the velocity of lightning, pro- ducing so much light from the quantity of fire it threw out, that one might see in the camp as if it had been day. Its use was continued till the middle of the 14th century, when it gave place to gunpowder. M. Niepce de St. Vic- tor experimented, by request of the French minister of war, upon the property of benzole of burning upon water and igniting if a bit of potassium or of phosphuret of calcium be con- tained in it. On this principle he made an in- extinguishable lamp, to be ignited by immer- sion under water, for attachment to buoys and life preservers. He found that if a glass vessel containing 300 grammes of benzole and half a gramme of potassium were broken on the sur- face of the water, the benzole would immedi- ately overspread a considerable surface, burst- ing at the same time into flame. A mixture of three parts of benzole and one of sulphuret of carbon, being put into a hand grenade pre- viously heated by immersion in boiling water, produced ^, disengagement of vapor, which could be ignited and would continue to burn from a jet until the whole was consumed. Phosphorus in solution increases its power of setting fire to other objects. Petroleum may be substituted for the benzole. It was thought that this might be used in naval warfare as the ancient Greek fire was employed. It was tried by the Paris commune in 1871, un- der whose direction many thousand petrole- um bombs were thrown with disastrous effect. The subject is fully treated by Scoffern in his "Projectile Weapons of War and Explosive Compounds " (London, 1858), in which he also names several liquid mixtures that spontane- ously ignite, and may be used for the same pur- poses as Greek fire. A solution of phosphorus in sulphuret of carbon thrown in a glass gre- nade was found, in experiments conducted at Woolwich, to ignite soon after the liquid was Mattered. Chloride of sulphur may be substi- t it. ! for the sulphuret of carbon, the ignition riot taking place quite so soon, thus giving time for the liquid to penetrate into woodwork and canvas. An abominable odor is diffused during the combustion. The arsenical alcohol, de- scribed under KAKODYLE, is proposed for a similar purpose, the fumes from which would greatly add to its deadly effects. GREEK MYTHOLOGY. See MYTHOLOGY. GREELEY. I. A central county of Nebraska, formed since the census of 1870, drained by branches of Loup fork of the Platte river ; area, 625 sq. m. II. An E. county of Dakota terri- tory, recently formed, and not included in the census of 1870 ; area, about 900 sq. m. It con- sists mostly of table land, being largely occupied by the " Coteau des Prairies," and contains several small lakes. GREELEY, a town of Weld co., Colorado, on the S. bank of the Cache a la Poudre river, a few miles above its junction with the South Platte, and on the Denver Pacific railroad, 50 m. N. by E. of Denver ; pop. in 1870, 480 ; in 1874, about 1,500. It is situated about 30 m. E. of the Rocky mountains, and is the centre of a rapidly improving region, well supplied with coal, stone, and timber. It contains three tanneries, two saw mills, a grist mill, three ho- tels, two banks, a graded school building cost- ing $25,000, two weekly newspapers, a quar- terly and a semi-annual periodical, and six churches. Greeley was founded in April, 1870, by the Union colony, which was organized in New York on Dec. 23, 1869, and was named in honor of Horace Greeley, one of its promoters. The colony purchased 12,000 acres of land, and took the preliminary steps to secure a large amount more from the government. The town site was divided into 483 business lots, 660 resi- dence lots, and 81 lots reserved for churches, schools, &c. The adjoining lands were divided into sections of from 5 to 40 acres, and each colonist was allowed to select one. A public square of 10 acres, planted with trees and beau- tified with artificial lakes, was laid out in the centre of the town, and an island in the river just above the town, embracing 50 acres and covered with cottonwood trees, was reserved for public use. All deeds of property contain clauses prohibiting the manufacture or sale of liquor in any form. An extensive system of irrigation has been established. The valuation of town property in 1874 was $850,000; of farming lands, $1,500,000. GREELEY, Horace, an American journalist, born in Amherst, N. H., Feb. 3, 1811, died at Pleasantville, N. Y., Nov. 29, 1872. His ances- tors were Scotch-Irish. His father, Zaccheus Greeley, had settled on a small rocky farm, which he vainly tried to pay for and get a living from. Horace was a delicate and sickly child, but showed a remarkable appetite for learning. He could read almost as soon as he could talk, devoured all the books within reach, and so far surpassed his schoolmates that the leading men of the neighborhood offered to bear his expenses in a college course, which his parents declined for him. When he was ten years old the farm was sold by the sheriff, and
