INTERMEDIATE VELOCITIES. 113 



ments of Bunsen, Schlcesing, and Mallard and Le Chatelier 

 relate. 



We may, moreover, imagine the existence of velocities that 

 are intermediate between these two limits ; but they do not 

 constitute a regular system. In fact, the passing from one 

 regime to the other is accompanied, as is generally the case with 

 transitions of this kind, by violent movements, and extensive 

 and irregular displacements of matter, during which the propa- 

 gation of the combustion takes place in virtue of a vibratory 

 movement increasing in amplitude and gaining in velocity. 1 

 Thus the regime of combustion, developed under conditions of 

 continually increasing pressure, ends by arriving at the regime 

 of detonation. These two regimes, and the general conditions 

 that define the establishment of each of them, and the transition 

 from one to the other, apply not only to gaseous explosive com- 

 pounds, but also to solid and liquid explosive systems, seeing 

 that the latter are wholly or partially transformed into gas, at 

 the time of the detonation. 



1 See Mallard and Le Chatelier, "Comptes Rendus des stances de 

 l'Acade*mie des Sciences," torn. xcv. pp. 599, 1352. 



