56 PRIORITY OF DISCOVERIES. 



sulphuric acid possessed excellent properties as a 

 blasting material, and seemed well suited to take the 

 place of blasting powder for military purposes but that 

 it could not in general be substituted for gunpowder, 

 as it presented no sufficiently stable chemical com- 

 bination, and its action was not constant enough. 



I had already sent in this report when Professor 

 Otto in Brunswick discovered anew and published my 

 method of preparation of serviceable gun-cotton. My 

 earlier action in the matter and my report to the 

 war-office remained of course secret, and Otto there- 

 fore must rightly be held the discoverer of serviceable 

 gun-cotton, since he was the first to make public the 

 method of its production. It has often been so with 

 me. It appears at first sight hard and unjust that 

 any one may by earlier publication appropriate the 

 honour of a discovery or invention, which another, 

 who has worked at it long with ardour and success, 

 would only make known after the most thorough 

 testing. On the other hand it must however be admit- 

 ted that some definite rule must be established in regard 

 to priority, since for science and the world it is not 

 the person, but the thing itself and its publication 

 that is of importance. 



After the danger of removal from Berlin had 

 been in this manner successfully averted I was able 

 to devote myself with a tranquil mind to telegraphy. 

 I sent general Oetzel. the chief of the optical telegraph 

 department under the immediate direction of the 

 staff, a memoir on the condition of telegraphy and the 



