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VI. Researches on Explosives. Part III. 



By Sir ANDREW NOBLE, Bart., K.C.B., F.R.S., F.R.A.S. 



Received June 8, Read June 8, 1905. 



[PLATES 1-13.] 



THE Researches which I venture to communicate to the Royal Society are, for the 

 new explosives cordite, modified cordite, and nitro-cellulose, a continuation of the 

 same modes of research, adopted in the experiments I made many years ago upon 

 fired gunpowder with regard to the pressure and other phenomena attending its 

 decomposition, and which appeared in the ' Philosophical Transactions.' * In the 

 present investigations the same general methods have been followed, but with 

 apparatus greatly improved and of much greater delicacy. 



The Academy of Sciences of France did Sir F. ABEL and myself the great honour 

 to appoint MM. le General MORIN and BERTHELOT to report on our paper, and after 

 giving an extended analysis of the results of our experiments the reporters con- 

 cluded t : " Par cette analyse trop succincte de rimportant travail que MM. NOBLE 

 et ABEL ont soumis au jugement de 1' Academic, on pent voir que malgre" certaines 

 critiques auxquelles nul travail humain ne saurait echapper, 1'ensemble de leurs 

 recherches n'en constitue pas moins une oeuvre capitale, propre a, jeter un grand 

 jour sur toutes les questions qui se rattachent aux effets des poudres." 



A paper by M. BERTHELOT in the same No. of the ' Comptes Rendus ' draws 

 attention to the chief point upon which that eminent chemist differed from ourselves. 



A study of the variations in the products when the decomposition of gunpowder 

 was conducted under pressures widely different, varying in fact between 1 ton per 

 sq. inch and 35 to 40 tons per sq. inch, led my lamented friend Sir F. ABEL and 

 myself to state that, according to our view, "any attempt to express even in a 

 complicated chemical equation the nature of the metamorphosis which a gunpowder 

 of average composition may be considered to undergo, would only be calculated to 

 convey an erroneous impression as to the simplicity or definite nature of the 

 chemical results, and their uniformity under different conditions, while possessing no 

 important bearing upon an elucidation of the theory of the explosion of gunpowder. " 



* NOBLE and ABEL, 'Fired Gunpowder,' Part I., 1875. 

 t ' Comptes Rendus,' vol. 82, p. 492. 

 VOL. CCV. A 392. 2 D 23.9.05 



