MANUFACTURE, ETC., OF GUNPOWDER. 731 



the canal-barge could do so much damage, what, it was asked, would 

 be the effect of an explosion of the 2,000 tons at Purfleet ? Attempts 

 were made to calculate the radius of destruction by Mallet's formula 

 for the effect of bursting shells the fact being disregarded that the 

 bursting of a shell and the blowing up of a magazine are essentially 

 different affairs. We were told how all East London would suffer 

 from the shock, how several villages in Kent and Essex would be de- 

 stroyed, and how trains would be thrown off the railway-lines, gasom- 

 eters wrecked, and a wide district plunged into darkness. We must 

 not forget that an explosion in the open country would have relatively 

 much less force than an explosion in the midst of closely-built streets 

 like those about Regent's Park. An explosion at Purfleet would be 

 very terrible, but probably not half so destructive as one might ex- 

 pect at first sight. 1 Then the Government must keep this large store 

 of powder somewhere ; 50,000 barrels could not be manufactured on 

 an emergency, and Purfleet offers advantages in the way of safe and 

 easy transport from Waltham, and shipment to India and the colonies, 

 which mark it as a good site for our chief magazines. The gunpowder 

 might indeed be distributed in numerous magazines, at various points 

 along the lower part of the Thames, but this would really be to in- 

 crease the chances of an explosion ; for, the more numerous is the staff 

 of superintendents and store-keepers, the greater is the danger of care- 

 lessness on the part of some among them. 



Many a one has said, with the foppish young lord, who so much 

 excited the anger of Hotspur at Holmedon : 



"... That it was great pity, so it was, 

 That villainous saltpetre should be digged 

 Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 

 Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed." 



But, strange as it may seem at first sight, gunpowder and such com- 

 pounds are as much used in peace as in war. What with practising, 

 salutes, experiments, and reviews, our army, navy, and volunteers, burn 

 every year as much gunpowder as would be required for half a dozen 

 battles and a siege or two. But it is in mining, quarrying, and en- 

 gineering works, in a word, for industrial purposes generally, that 

 gunpowder is chiefly used ; and as strife and peaceful industry can- 

 not exist together, a war, on the whole, tends to lessen rather than 

 increase the consumption of explosive substances. During the great 

 conflict in America the sale and import of gunpowder fell off enor- 

 mously. It is said that the same thing was noticed in France during 

 the Crimean War ; and probably the present war in Spain, by stop- 

 ping the iron-mines of the north, has diminished the import of blast- 



1 The explosion of a large magazine is really the successive explosion of various por- 

 tions of its contents, not the detonation of the whole mass. This is why it is falla-cious 

 to attempt to estimate the effect of the explosion of 2,000 tons by comparing it with the 

 explosion of a large shell, or of a few barrels on board a barge. 



