54 GUN-COTTON. 



his laboratory. He willingly granted it. and I went 

 eagerly to work. 



I had the idea, that by employing stronger nitric 

 acid and by more careful washing and neutralizing a 

 better and less easily decomposable product could be 

 obtained. All the experiments however came to 

 nothing, though I used fuming nitric acid extremely 

 concentrated: a greasy easily destructible product was 

 always the result. My stock of extremely concentrated 

 nitric acid having run short I once tried the effect 

 of adding some concentrated sulphuric acid in order 

 to strengthen it, and to my astonishment got a gun- 

 cotton with altogether different properties. After 

 washing it became white and firm like the unchanged 



o O 



gun-cotton and exploded very energetically. I was 

 overjoyed, made till late in the night a considerable 

 quantity of such gun-cotton and placed it in the 

 drying-stove of the laboratory. 



When after a brief sleep I went again early in 

 the morning to the laboratory I found the professor 

 standing mournfully among ruins in the middle of the 

 room. On heating the drying-stove the gun-cotton 

 had exploded and destroyed the stove. A glance 

 made this clear to me and showed the perfect success 

 of my experiments. The professor, with whom I in 

 my joy tried to waltz round the room, seemed at 

 first to think I had gone wrong in the head. It cost 

 me some trouble to set his mind at rest, and to induce 

 him to resume the experiments at once. About eleven 

 o'clock I had packed a goodly quantity of faultless 



