Why Cotton Is Contraband of War 



By Hudson Maxim 



Cotton : It will make a shirt to hide your 

 nakedness or blast a subway to make 

 transportation easier 



COTTON happens to be the best 

 combustible element to combine 

 chemically with nitric acid so as 

 to produce a high explosive, and also to 

 serve as the principal ingredient for the 

 manufacture of smokeless powder. 



A bale of cotton may, therefore, be 

 considered a bale of guncotton in 

 embryo. 



There are many kinds of nitrocellu- 

 lose, depending upon the so-called de- 

 gree or character of nitration, that is to 

 say, upon the way in which it is treated 

 with nitric acid and the strength of the 

 nitric acid. 



When ordinary cotton is immersed in 

 nitric acid, the cotton absorbs oxygen 

 from the nitric acid, but not as free 

 oxygen, because the oxygen is taken up 

 in com])ination with nitrogen. But the 

 weight of the oxygen absorbed is much 

 in excess of the weight of nitrogen, the 

 nitrogen acting merely as a carrier of 

 the oxygen. The appearance of the 

 cotton is not changed to any appreciable 



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