DISCOVERY OP A NEW EXPLOSIVE. 31 



He always watched with lively interest the passing events 

 of his day, and to the last pursued knowledge with persistent 

 zeal. Thus it was that he conceived the idea of diminishing 

 the number and duration of wars by making war more 

 terrible. Believing in this doctrine, he went to work with 

 his characteristic enthusiasm to invent a missile of most 

 destructive power, and succeeded in manufacturing a 

 detonating powder of awful explosive force, and yet 

 possessing the recommendation of being quite safe to handle 

 or move about. In combination with this powder he designed 

 a shell, which was admitted by experienced military men to 

 be an improvement on everything of the kind then in use. 



It is a curious coincidence that while he was engaged in 

 perfecting this invention, Professor Faraday gave a lecture 

 on explosives, in which he hinted at the possibility of 

 an explosive force being devised by a combination of 

 bodies capable of instantaneous and vast expansion. No 

 process had as yet been discovered by which the com- 

 bination could be effected. This was exactly what Robert 

 Boyle accomplished, and what had baffled hundreds of 

 experimentalists before his time. Interesting experiments 

 were made at Glasgow in the presence of Lord Provost 

 Blackie, Mr. Dalglish, M.P., Colonel Carter, and other 

 officers of the 63rd regiment, and a large assembly of 

 practical and scientific men, who unanimously proclaimed 



