MODERN EXPLOSIVES 1 



BY J. S. S. BBAME 

 Of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich 



THE subject of explosives is one which never fails to 

 excite interest even under the most ordinary conditions, 

 doubtless owing to the enormous potentiality of these sub- 

 stances, while at the present time more than usual attention 

 is directed to them, it being scarcely possible to read a daily 

 paper without finding some reference to the behavior of 

 various modern explosives in the theater of war. 



Explosion may be defined as chemical action causing 

 extremely rapid formation of a very great volume of 

 highly expanded gas, this large volume of gas being gen- 

 erally due to the direct liberation by chemical action, and 

 the further enormous expansion by the heat generated. 

 Explosion itself may, therefore, be regarded as extremely 

 rapid combustion, while the effect is obtained by the enor- 

 mous pressure produced, owing to the products of combus- 

 tion occupying probably many thousand times the volume 

 of the original body. The effect of high temperature is 

 seen in the well-known case of explosion of a mixture of 

 hydrogen and oxygen, where if the original mixture and 

 the products of explosion are each measured at the same 

 temperature above the boiling point of water, a less volume 

 of gas (water vapor) is actually found. The explosion can 

 only have been produced by the enormous expansion of 

 this vapor in the first place by the heat of the reaction. 

 Such an explosion when carried out in a closed bomb with 

 the mixed gases under ordinary conditions of measure- 

 ment produces a pressure of about 240 pounds to the square 



*A lecture delivered at the London Institution on February 12, 

 1900. Published in Scientific American Supplement for May 12, 1900. 

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