440 



NATURE 



[September 4, 1890 



especial interest to the constructor of steel guns, as the powers 

 of endurance of these do not simply depend upon the quality of 

 the material composing them, but are very largely influenced by 

 the treatment which it receives at the hands of the gun-maker. 

 Indeed, the highest importance attaches to the processes which 

 are applied to the preliminary preparation of the individual parts 

 of which the gun is constructed, and to the putting together of 

 these so as to ensure their being and remaining in the physical 

 condition best calculated to assist each other in securing for the 

 structure the power of so successfully resisting the heavy strains 

 to which it has to be subjected, as to suffer little alteration other 

 than that due to the superficial action of the highly-heated pro- 

 ducts of explosion of the charges fired in the gun. The develop- 

 ment of interna] strains in objects of steel, especially by the 

 hardening and tempering processes, or by their exposure to con- 

 ditions favourable to unequal cooling of different parts of the 

 mass, has long been a subject of much trouble and of experi- 

 mental inquiry in connection with many applications of steel. 

 Systematic experiments of the kind, commenced, about eighteen 

 years ago, by the late Russian general Kalakoutsky, are now 

 being pursued at Woolwich, with the objects of determining the 

 nature and causes of internal stresses in steel gun-hoops and 

 -tubes, and in shells, and of thereby establishing the proper 

 course to be adopted for avoiding, lessening, or counteracting 

 injurious stresses, on the one hand, and for setting up stresses 

 beneficial to the powers of endurance of guns, on the other. 

 One method of experiment pursued, with parts of guns, is to cut 

 narrow hoops off the forgings, after a particular treatment, which 

 are then cut right across at one place, it being observed whether, 

 and to what extent, the resulting gaps open or close. This 

 important subject has also been similarly investigated by my 

 talented old friend and fellow-worker, the President this year of 

 the Mechanical Section, Captain Andrew Noble, whose name 

 in connection with the science and practice of artillery is familiar 

 to us as household words. 



The Crimean War taught nations many lessons of gravest 

 import, to some of which Sir Richard Owen took occasion to 

 call attention most impressively in the address delivered here, 

 before the miseries of that war had become past history. The 

 development of sanitary science, to which he especially referred, 

 and which sprang from the bitter experience of that sad epoch, 

 has had its parallel in the development of the science of artil- 

 lery ; but it would indeed be difficult to establish any parallelism 

 between the benefits which even the soldier and the sailor have 

 reaped from the great strides made by both these sciences. The 

 acquisition of knowledge of the causes of the then hopelessness 

 of gallant struggles which medical skill and self-sacrificing devo- 

 tion made against the sufferings of the victims of battles and of 

 fell diseases, as deadly as the cruellest implements of war ; the 

 application of that knowledge to the provision of the blessings 

 of antiseptic treatment of wounds and to the intelligent utilization 

 of disinfectants and of other valuable preventive measures, to 

 the supply of wholesome vv^ater, of wholesome food in campaign- 

 ing, of sensible clothing, and of wholesome air in hospitals, 

 barracks, and ships — these are some few of the benefits which 

 the soldier and the sailor have derived from the development of 

 sanitary science, which was so powerfully stimulated by the 

 terrible lessons learned during the long-drawn-out siege of 

 Sebastopol : and it is indeed pleasant to reflect that there has 

 been, for years past, most wholesome competition between 

 nations in the eilargement of those benefits, and their dissemi- 

 nation among the men whose vocation it is to slay and be slain. 

 The periodical International Congresses on Hygiene and Demo- 

 graphy, of which we shall cordially welcome next year's assem- 

 blage in London, and whose members will deplore the absence 

 from among them of the veteran Nestor in the science and 

 practice of hygiene, Sir Edwin Chadwick, have afforded conclu- 

 sive demonstration of the heartiness with which nations are now 

 co-operating with a view to utilize the invaluable results attained 

 by the successful labourers in sanitary science. 



What, on the other hand, shall we say of the benefits which 

 sailors and soldiers, in the pursuit of their calling, derive from 

 the ceaseless costly competition amongst nations for supremacy 

 in the possession of formidable artillery, violent explosives, 

 quick-firing arms of deadly accuracy, and fearful engines which, 

 unseen, can work wholesale destruction in a fleet? And what 

 can we say of the benefits acquired by individual countries in 

 return for their continuous, and sometimes ruinous, expenditure 

 in endeavouring to maintain themselves upon an equality with 



their neighbours in man-killing power ? The conditions under 

 which engagemenis by sea or land will in the future be fought 

 have certainly become greatly modified from those of thirty-five 

 years ago, and the duration of warfare, even between nations in 

 conflict who are on a fair equality of resources, must become 

 reduced ; but, as regards the results of a trial of strength between 

 contending forces, similarly equipped, as they now will be, with 

 the latest of modern appliances only varying in detail, these 

 must, after all, depend, as of old, partly upon accident, favoured, 

 perhaps, by a temporary superiority in equipment, partly upon 

 the skill and military " genius of individuals, and very much 

 upon the characteristics of the men who fight the battles. 



What really can be said in favour of the advances made in the 

 appliances of war — and this is, perhaps, the view which in such 

 a town as Leeds we should keep before our eyes to the exclusion 

 of the dark sideof the picture — is, that by continuous competition 

 in the development of their magnitude, diversity, and perfection, 

 the resources of the manufacturer, the chemist, the engineer, the 

 electrician, are taxed to the uttermost ; with the very important, 

 although incidental, results, that industries are created or ex- 

 panded and perfected, trades maintained and developed, and 

 new achievements accomplished in applied science, which in time 

 beneficially afiect the advance of peaceful arts and manufactures. 

 In these ways the expenditure of a large proportion of a country's 

 resources upon material which is destroyed in creating destruction 

 does substantially benefit communities, and tends to the accom- 

 plishment of such material progress by a country as goes far to 

 compensate its people for the sacrifices which they are called 

 upon to incur for the maintenance of their dignity among nations. 

 From this point of view, at any rate, it may interest members 

 j of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and 

 I for the promotion of its applications to the welfare and happiness 

 of mankind, to hear something of recent advances in one of the 

 several branches of science in its applications to naval and military 

 requirements with which, during a long and arduous official 

 career, now approaching its close, I have become in some 

 measure identified. 



Since the meeting of the Association in this town in 1858, the 

 progress which has been made in the regulation of the explosive 

 force of gunpowder, so as to adapt it to the safe development of 

 very high energy in guns presenting great difterences in regard to 

 size and to the work which they have to perform, has been most 

 important. The different forms of gunpowder which were 

 applied to war-purposes in this and other countries, until within 

 the last few years, presented comparatively few differences in 

 composition and methods of manufacture from each other, and 

 from the gunpowder of our ancestors. The replacement of 

 smooth-bore guns by rifled artillery, which followed the Crimean 

 War, and the great increase in the size and power of guns, 

 necessitated by the application of armour to ships and forts, soon 

 called, however, for the pursuit of investigations having for their 

 object the attainment of means for variously modifying the action 

 of fired gunpowder, so as to render it suitable for artillery of 

 different calibres whose power could not be effectively, or, in 

 some instances, safely, developed by the use of the only kind of 

 gunpowder then employed in English artillery of all calibres. 



The means resorted to in the earlier of these investigations, 

 and adhered to for many years, for controlling the violence of ex- 

 plosion of gunpowder, consisted exclusively in modifying the size 

 and form of the individual masses composing a charge, and of 

 their density and hardness, with the object of varying the rate of 

 burning of those masses in a gun ; it being considered that, as 

 the proportions of ingredients generally employed very nearly 

 correspond to those required for the development of the greatest 

 chemical energy by the thoroughly- incorporated materials, the 

 attainment of the desired results should be, if possible, effected 

 rather by modifications of the physical and mechanical characters 

 of gunpowder, than by variations of the proportions and chemical 

 characters of its ingredients. 



The varieties of powder from time to time introduced into 

 artillery- service, as the outcome of investigations in this direction, 

 were of two distinct types : the first of these consisted of further 

 developments of the old granulated or corned powder, being pro- 

 duced by breaking up more or less highly-pressed slabs of the 

 material into grains, pebbles, or boulders of approximately 

 uniform size and shape. Gunpowders of this class, ranging in 

 size from about looo pieces to the ounce to about 6 pieces to 

 the pound, have performed efficient service, and certain of them 

 are still employed. The character of the other type is based 

 upon the theoretical view that uniformity in the action of a 



NO. 1088, VOL. 42] 



