XXXVI. On Blasd/ig with Gunpowder, Sy J. Faret, 

 Esq. 



To JSIr. T'dloch. 



SIR, 



WBSKKVING, this day, among the original communications 

 in a cotcmporarv journal, the use of sand recommended by 

 an eminent eniiincer, for stopping in the eliarge of gun- 

 powder intended for blasting or splitting rocks; who states^ 

 the usual practice to be, after introducing the powder, " to 

 ram up the remainder of the hole with stone pulverised by 

 ihc operation of ramming it;" and which operation he justly 

 states to be tedious and dangerous; I am induced to state, 

 for the information of such of your readers as it may con- 

 cern, that, during a temporary residence at Hallifax, in 

 Yorkshire, in the vear 1782, I frequently observed the 

 quarrv-men, in the neighbouring hills, blasting the rocks, 

 and using roa/-c//?r^^n' roughly pulverised, and very slightly 

 rammed into the hole, upon the pou der round the priming- 

 wire. I made no minittc at the time; but, if my memory 

 serves me correctly, I think two inches or even less of the 

 hole, thus filled with cinders, was sufficient to retain the 

 requisite charge of powder- 

 In the year 1784, after heating some pit-coal in a gun- 

 barrel, wuh the touch-hole closed, and a tobacco-pipe ce- 

 mented bv whiting into its muzzle, to show some friends 

 the raising of bubbles of soap, and other experiments which 

 the rau'e tor balloons then suggested (and among them the 

 nrodueinfj of a continued ilanie, or light, by means of tho 

 intlammabic air separated from the coals, which has latelv 

 been shown, and rather ponipouslv announced in a pam- 

 phlet from the Lyceum in the Strand) ; on unscrewing tlie 

 breech-pin, and attcmptins; to clear the ba/rel of the very 

 tender and spongy cinder it contained, by punching it out 

 by mean? of an iron rod, I found it could not be penetrated 

 ur started fur^-ards by tlie strongest blows of a hammer, al- 

 tliough the end of a rod a little fialtencd afterwards bored 

 the whole out, in a few seconds, with perfect ease. I have 

 little doubt but a few inches of cinders rammed iuto artillery, 

 viiK>ii the chuge, would eHictually burst such pieces as were 

 iuieuJed to 'be de-^troyed. Brhk-dust and the chnj plaster- 

 ing of '111 old wall 1 ha\ e soen used with success in some 

 places instead of cinders in blasting rocks.' It is no't alto- 

 gether foreign to this subject to mention, that T had occasion, 

 m the vear ] &ol , to visit one of captain Mudge's stations in 



the 



