SMOKELESS GUNPOWDER. 61 



leisure in walking through dry places seeking rest ; for, to those who 

 have the eyes to see and the spirit to discern, the world is neither dry 

 nor barren ; but rather, it is like the mountain as it appeared to the 

 servant of the prophet when his eyes were opened, full of beauty and 

 wonder, of mystery and power full of hosts from all nations, striving 

 manfully onward to promised lands of knowledge and of truth, and 

 waging ceaseless warfare against ignorance and prejudice, and the 

 long train of evils which are consequent upon them. And if, as the 

 eventide of life draws on, our eye wax dim, and our step grow weary, 

 so that we can no longer follow, we may still lay us down to rest in 

 some unknown spot, in the full confidence that others will not be want- 

 ing to fill our places and gain fresh ground, though we may not live 

 to see it. Nature. 



SMOKELESS GTTXPOWDER. 



IT is very often the case that one bird falls to the right barrel, and 

 " the rest unhurt " go on their way, rejoicing no doubt at having 

 escaped a deadly volley from the left barrel. There is, however, a 

 reason for their having got off scot-free, well known to all sportsmen ; 

 i. e., the smoke from the first barrel obscured the birds from the sports- 

 man's second aim, until they were out of range. Science, however, 

 has discovered a panacea for this oft-recurring disappointment, in 

 Schultze's wood-powder, a smokeless explosive which we wish to in- 

 troduce to those of our readers who are not already conversant with 

 its merits. Of course, every one knows our " dear, dirty old friend," 

 Black Gunpowder ; the acquaintance of which we made in early youth, 

 turning it into a "devil "to frighten our grandmother ; but we have 

 cut our " dear, dirty old friend," and our gun is now loaded with 

 Schultze's wood-powder instead. " How is this ? " you inquire. " Why 

 abandon an explosive with which Colonel Hawker, and the never-to-be- 

 forgotten Maxwell of 'Wild Sports of the West' celebrity, killed so 

 many head of game ? " To this we reply, Schultze's wood-powder was 

 not invented in their day, or they would have used it, and for these 

 reasons : 



For seven hundred years and more, even granting the invention to 

 have been Roger Bacon's, the dull-black mixture of sulphur, nitre, and 

 charcoal it is only a mixture, not a chemical compound has had the 

 monopoly of guns, large and small. It has answered every purpose 

 moderately well, perhaps more than moderately. Nevertheless, from 

 time to time the desire has arisen to evolve out of chemical stores some 

 new compound, mechanical or chemical, that should do better duty. 

 Somewhat extraordinary, indeed, the case seems that, amid all the 

 improvements of guns and gunnery, all the advancement of chemistry 



