DETONATING SYSTEM. 77 



enough to crack before it will bend. But, on the 

 other hand, if you lay it in a damp cellar all night, 

 it will not be found crisp in the morning. So it is 

 with detonating powder ; by long continued damp it 

 loses its crispness, and then, of course, will no longer 

 crack, or in other words, fire by percussion. 



One of the recipes for making detonating powder is : 



One ounce of oxymuriate of potash, 

 One-eighth of an ounce of superfine charcoal, 

 One-sixteenth of an ounce of sulphur, 



Mixed with gum arabic Mater, and then dried. It should be 

 mixed up in wood, for fear of accident. 



Another, and, I am told, a far better proportion, is : 



Five of oxymuriate ; 

 Two of sulphur; and ' 

 One of charcoal. 



I merely give the recipe, in case a sportsman should 

 be in a place where he cannot buy the composition, 

 as I presume, that no one in his senses would run 

 the risk of being blown up, in order to make, perhaps 

 indifferently, what he could so cheaply purchase in 

 perfection. 



The foregoing few directions are, I trust, sufficient, 

 and I have confined them to the most simple, and, 

 therefore, as yet, the best detonating system ; which, 

 in the trifling matter of caps, patches, &c. may be 

 suited to the shooter's fancy; but, as to all those 

 intricate magazines, moveable bodies, and other com- 

 plicated machinery, I leave their merits, and the 



