176 COMPOSITION AND ANALYSIS OP GUNPOWDER. 



dii doubU .'' *' The principal ingredients of gunpowder, and 

 those to which it owes its force, are nitre and charcoal; for 

 these two ingredients well mixed together, constitute gunpow. 

 der at least equal, if not superior in strength to common gun- 

 powder, (as I found by experience,) and may be seen in the 

 Memoire of Count Saluce, inserted in the Melanges de Philosophic 

 et de Mathematiques, de 1'Academie Royale de Turin. The sul. 

 phur seems to serve only for the purpose of setting fire to the mass 

 with a less degree of heat*." If I may trust some crude experi- 

 ments which I have made with a common powder trier, I must ac- 

 cede to the opinion of M. Beaume, as I repeatedly found that 

 equal bulks of common powder, and of the same sort of powder, 

 freed from its sulphur by a gentle evaporation, differed very much 

 both in the loudness and force of the explosion ; the powder which 

 had lost its sulphur being inferior to the other in both particulars. 

 It is not without reason, that equal bulks are here specified, for 

 any definitive measure of common powder weighs more than the 

 same measure of powder which has lost its sulphur; hence the re. 

 suit of experiments made with equal weights of these powders, will 

 be different from that which is derived from the explosion of equal 

 bulks : may not this observation tend to reconcile the opinions be- 

 fore mentioned ? But whether sulphur be an absolutely necessary 

 ingredient in the composition of gunpowder or not, it is certain 

 that an accurate mixture of the ingredients is essentially requisite. 

 In order to accomplish this accurate mixture, the ingredients are 

 previously reduced into coarse powders, and afterwards ground 

 and pounded together, till the powder becomes exceeding fine ; 

 and when that is done the gunpowder is made. But as gunpowder, 

 in the state of an impalpable dust, would be inconvenient in its 

 use, it has been customary to reduce it into grains, by forcing it, 

 when moistened with water, through sieves of various sizes. 



The necessity of a complete mixture of the materials, in order 

 to have good gunpowder, is sensibly felt, in the use of such as has 

 been dried after having been accidentally wetted. There may be 

 the same weight of the powder after it has been dried, that there 

 was before it was wetted ; but its strength is greatly diminished on 

 account of the mixture of the ingredients being less perfect. This 

 diminution of strength proceeds from the water having dissolved a 



Chym. par M. Bf:imu, vol. 1. p. 461. 



f Philos. Trans. 1779, p. S97, where the reader will find several ingenious 

 xperiinents relative to the nature of gunpowder, by Dr. Ingenbousx, 



