1855.] Dr, Gladstone on Gunpowder ^ and its substitutes. 99 



Visitors. 



Henry Browning, Esq. 

 John Charles Burgoyne, Esq. 

 John Robert F. Burnett, Esq. 

 Alexander Crichton, Esq. 

 Hugh W. Diamond, M.D. F.S.A. 

 Edward M. Foxhall, Esq. 

 Thomson Hankey, jun. Esq. M.P. 

 Admiral Sir T. Herbert. K.C.B. M.r. 



John Hicks, Esq. 



John Holdship, Esq. M.A. 



Octavius Morgan, Esq. MP. F.R.S. 



Robert R. I. Morley, Esq. 



John North, Esq. 



Rev. Cyril W. Page. 



Rev. William Taylor^ F.R.S* 



The President nominated the following Vice-Presidents for the 

 ensuing yetir : — The Treasurer, the Secretary, Sir B. C. Brodie, 

 Bart., Sir Charles Fellows, Bart., Sir Henry Holland, Bart., Right 

 Hon. Baron Parke, and Sir George Pollock, G.C.B. 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 4. 

 Sir Charles Fellows, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S. M.R.I. 

 On Gunpowder, and its substitutes. 



The object of the speaker was to return an answer to a question 

 which had of late been frequently proposed to him, and no doubt 

 to other chemists also : — " Cannot you now invent something much 

 better than gunpowder ? Are not some of your fulminating com- 

 pounds much more powerful ? Why should we still be using a 

 substance which was discovered long before chemistry was a 

 science ? " Dr. Gladstone stated that some of his friends had 

 considered him peculiarly qualified to give a reply to the query, 

 since he had analyzed in turn the most terrible explosives with 

 which modern science has made us acquainted ; yet he confessed he 

 laboured under a disadvantage in having no practical acquaintance 

 with gunnery, nor even with those experiments by which the pro- 

 pulsive force of different explosives is tested. He could give no 

 categorical answer to the proposed inquiry. He could point to no 

 substance, and say of it — " For use in fire-arms this is decidedly 

 superior to gunpowder ;" nor was he willing to say — " No ; it is 

 beyond the power of our science to invent anything better." He 

 was desirous of laying before the audience some of the principles 

 upon which a judgment might be formed ; of indicating the manner 

 of investigation, as much as the results already arrived at. 



