282 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



About the year 1410 we find that quaint treatise on gunpowder 

 called " Feuerwerksbuch," said to have been written by a master 

 gunner, Abraham von Memmingen. It contains the famous histoiy 

 of how Berthold Schwarz tried to make a gold paint and invented 

 gunpowder and guns instead. This book was lent to other master 

 gunners, who severally copied and enlarged it, until in 1534 it was 

 printed in Frankfort on the Main under the title, " Biichsenmey- 

 sterei." In this printed edition w^e find a prescription, " how to 

 shoot out of a gun as far with water as with gunpowder." Take 

 6 parts of nitric acid, 2 parts of sulphuric acid, 3 parts of liquid 

 ammonia, and 2 parts of "oleum benedictum " (crude tar oil), and 

 charge the gun to a tenth part of its bore. It further advises 

 quaintly, " Light it quickly, so as to get away in time. See that 

 the gun is very strong. With an ordinary gun you can shoot 3,000 

 paces Avith this Avater, but it is splendid." This is the first evidence 

 of a nitrated organic substance having been used as a propellant. 



I have already alluded to the history of the invention of gun 

 cotton, but one reference remains to be given, shoAving hoAv early 

 the use of gun cotton in rifles Avas thought of. It is knoAvn that 

 Schonbein reported on his gun cotton on March 11, 1846, and on 

 May 27, 1846, he made experiments Avith rifles. Professor Otto, of 

 Brunswick, had, independently of Schonbein, also made gun cotton, 

 and published his results on October 5, 1846. He also tried gun 

 cotton in a rifle, and Doctor Hartig published a pamphlet in 1847 

 at Brunswick, under the title " Untersuchungen iiber den Bestand 

 und die Wirkungen der explosiven Baumwolle " (Experiments on 

 the Condition and Effects of ExplosiA^e Cotton), and therein he 

 makes a statement, wdiich has since attained great importance. He 

 says that the effect Avhich acetic ether has on " the shooting fiber " is 

 very remarkable. He has found that if he makes a stiff, clear jelly 

 Avith this ether from the shooting fiber, it does not alter its chemical 

 state, and if put in a thin layer on a plate of glass, a snow-white 

 residue is left after the ether has evaporated. If this residue is put 

 into dilute alcohol and then dried it will have in every respect the 

 same properties as the shooting fiber. He mentions already that 

 probably on account of the altered state of aggregation there is a 

 considerable diminution of the explosive force. 



Nothing was heard of a real powder made of nitrocellulose for a 

 very long time. It is true that in 1847 the Commission de Pyroxyle, 

 which was appointed in France, " experimented Avith it in every form, 

 as wadding, spun, twisted, woven, reduced to powder by the action 

 of paper makers' cylinders, felted together by means of dextrine, 

 finally granulated like cannon poAvder," " but it was too violent for 



<* " Note sur la pyroxyline ou coton-poudre," par M. Susane, MtMuoires de 

 rAcademie Imperiale de INIetz, 1855. 



