Pharaoh’s snake

Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882) invented the trick known as Pharaoh s Snake, which became vei y popular at fairs ... 

Pharaoh s Snake at the top before lighting, below afiei ligluing. 

According to Weingart and Lancaster it is important to obtain a good pitch as the raw material e.g. the residue from the distillation of p-naphthol, but the author does not find it easy to get this material at present. In Japan ordinary coal pitch is used but it has a defect for it produces much soot and smoke. There is another kind of snake named Pharaoh s Serpent. The composition contains a mercury compound and may be poisonous. 

It consists of a cone uj pressed gray-white powder, which is ignited on afire-resistant surface. Bluish flames, out of which arose a fantastically shaped monster of a brownish-yellow color that was well suited to test one s memories of the Biblical story according to which Moses and his companions cast rods in front of the Pharaoh and transformed them into snakes. .. 

---