IX 



THE PRODUCTION OF EXPLOSIVES 

 CHARLES E. MUNROE 



SINCE the introduction of gunpowder into use it has been 

 quite generally recognized that explosives are essential 

 in the carrying on of war, and it is expected that large quanti- 

 ties of them will be consumed in warfare. It is not as gen- 

 erally recognized that explosives are equally essential for use. 

 in industry and that the demands of our modern civilization 

 for coal and many of the ores, and for the carrying out of 

 engineering and a variety of other operations, cannot be met 

 except through the use of enormous quantities of these reser- 

 voirs of concentrated energy. An inspection of our census 

 statistics will show a constantly increasing production of ex- 

 plosives until 1909, when there were manufactured in the 

 United States 244,622 tons of explosives in one year, of which 

 less than one-half of one per cent, were designated for military 

 uses. It is believed that the annual production in subsequent 

 years, except that of 1914, was greater than the above but no 

 U. S. Census statistics have been taken except those for 1914 

 when production of all kinds was lessened during the last six 

 months. All civilized countries have been engaged in the 

 manufacture of explosives, though none upon so extensive a 

 scale as the United States, during the last half century. 



For several hundred years after its introduction men de- 

 pended upon potassium nitrate gunpowder alone to perform all 

 the variety of duties demanded of explosives in peace or in 

 war, and it early became the subject of scientific investigation 

 and supervision; Tartaglia, Galileo, Newton, Huygens, and 



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