Flames rise from Notre Dame cathedral as it burns in Paris, Monday, April 15, 2019. Massive plumes of yellow brown smoke is filling the air above Notre Dame Cathedral and ash is falling on tourists and others around the island that marks the center of Paris. (Photo by Thibault Camus/AP Photo)

This Wednesday, August 31, 2016 photo, provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), shows Syrian boys dive into a hole filled with water that was caused by a missile attack in the rebel-held neighborhood of Sheikh Saeed in Aleppo province, Syria. (Photo by Aleppo Media Center via AP Photo)

Thailand’s Sanctuary of Truth is an all-wood building filled with sculptures based on traditional Buddhist and Hindu motifs. It is covered in intricate wood carvings, meant to depict complex ideas about ancient thought, human responsibility, and the cycle of life. (Photo by Yury Taranik/Getty Inages)

A row of abandoned oil tanks is filled with creepers on the riverside of Liyun River in Huai 'an, East China's Jiangsu Province, May 9, 2023. (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Rabbits are seen in a cage, which is placed by authority as a test of the living conditions near the site of last week's blasts at Binhai new district in Tianjin, China, August 19, 2015. According to local media, the animals were alive after being placed near the blasts site for two hours. Four new fires have broken out at the site where two huge blasts last week killed 116 people, Chinese state media reported Friday soon after officials said safety hazards were found at almost 70 percent of firms handling dangerous chemicals in Beijing. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

If we were to burn NH4Cr2O7 with HgSCN in the Dark Ages in Europe and show it to anyone, it is us who would be burning next on a fiery cross of Inquisition. And it’s no wonder, since this experiment produces a truly marvelous result. At first, as you ignite the mixture of NH4Cr2O7 and HgSCN, all you can see is that it is slowly burning with a reddish flame. After a while, however, a crater is formed in the middle of the burning pile, and then, suddenly, tentacle-like appendages start sprouting from the burning mixture. And you can almost hear the scream of the mad occultist – “Come forth, Kraken! Come forth!” But of course, this is simply a chemical reaction that is called the "Pharoah's Serpent". It was also often sold in firework stores until people realized that it was toxic.

“A Cornish pasty, sometimes known as a pastie or British pasty in the United States, is a filled pastry case, associated in particular with Cornwall in Great Britain. It is made by placing the uncooked filling on a flat pastry circle, and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge at the side or top to form a seal. The result is a raised semicircular package”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Cornish students (R) Nina Brooke, 21 and (L) Bonnie Mably, 20, laugh as they pose for a photograph as they try a Cornish pasty that has been baked as part of the World Cornish Pasty Championships at The Eden Project on March 3, 2012 in St Austell, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A woman fills her ballot paper during the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament and local parliaments elections at a polling station in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, September 17, 2021. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)