PEOGRESS IN EXPLOSIVES GUTTMANN. 283 



use in guns and rifles. Baron von Lenck, in Austria, made gun 

 charges from fibrous gun cotton, and we know that they were not a 

 success. In 1865 Capt. Eduard Schultze, of Berlin, published a 

 pamphlet on his " new chemical gunpowder," in which he gave the 

 first indication of his powder, but more words than details. At the 

 same time, however, a number of German journals published some 

 particulars of its manufacture. Very soon after Schultze used finely 

 pulped nitrocellulose, and made powder grains by agglomeration 

 with water in drums. It is also remarkable that in 1865 Abel " 

 patented the production of grains of gun cotton by placing a mix- 

 ture of gun cotton with w^ater and a little gum arable in a pan, and 

 giving it a shaking motion, whereby the gun cotton was formed 

 into grains. He also proposed to mix soluble and insoluble gun 

 cotton, and to make the soluble gun cotton serve as a binding material 

 by treatment with wood spirit, alcohol, ether, or mixtures of these 

 liquids. It is further interesting that Doctor Ivellner, of Woolwich, 

 is mentioned in a German book which appeared in 1866 ^ to have 

 been the first to succeed in making a granular smokeless poAvder. 

 Neither Abel nor Kellner seem to have continued at the gelatiniza- 

 tion of nitrocellulose. 



The author well remembers, however, a firm in Marchegg, near 

 Vienna, which existed under the name of Volkmann's k.k. priv. Col- 

 lodinfabriks Gesellschaft H. Pernice & Co. They originally bought 

 the patent for the Schultze powder, and made it under the name of 

 nitroxylin. From 1872 to 1875 they made a powder called collodin, 

 the invention of Friedrich Volkmann, which was patented under date 

 November 8, 1870, and May 31, 1871. After three years of existence 

 the Austrian Government ordered the works to be closed, because they 

 claimed that this explosive was infringing their gunpowder monoply. 



Volkmann cut up alder wood into small grains of the size of black 

 powder, boiled, and washed, then bleached them, and after final 

 boiling nitrated them in a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid. Thus 

 far the treatment was that usually given to cotton waste. The fin- 

 ished grains were soaked in a solution of potassium nitrate, or of 

 potassium nitrate and barium nitrate, and, after drying, treated with 

 a mixture of 5 volumes of ether to 1 volume of alcohol. The solvent 

 was allowed to penetrate the grains completely, and the more the 

 substance was dissolved the more the volume decreased. On taking 

 the powder out of the solvent it had the appearance of a mush, which, 

 after twelve hours' drying at 30° C, was converted into a dough, a 

 pasty, pliable substance, from which any shape could be obtained by 

 molding and pressing. Volkmann seems to have known everything 

 about a smokeless powder. 



« British patent No. 1102, of 1865. 



* " Biich der Brfindungen," Lelpsic, 1S6G, chapter on gnnpowder and arms. 



