378 
NATURE 
THE SCIENCE OF WAR 
Ill. 
GUNS AND GUNPOWDER 
> dae) the past twelve months an invention of 
considerable ingenuity has been matured which 
promises to enlarge to a marked degree our knowledge of 
the science of gunnery. Weare all aware of the great 
perfection to which the cannon in use now-a-days have | 
been brought, and how they represent the results of | 
eo YyeePy : 
progress which has been steadily going on during three or | 
four centuries, until at last we have succeeded in pro- 
ducing guns rifled to such a degree of precision that any 
object visible at a couple of miles may be hit with cer- 
| 
tainty, while in some cases a distance of ten or even 
eleven thousand yards is actually reached by the shot. 
These are improvements at once patent and appreciable, 
and such indeed as might be anticipated from constant 
practical and theoretical study of the subject ; but while 
congratulating ourselves upon the advance made in this 
branch of gunnery science, we cannot, at the same time, 
but marvel at the slight progress effected towards improv- 
ing the source of our motive power, and at the fact that 
no explosive agent has yet been brought forward to super- 
sede the gunpowder now used. 
Explosive mixtures have, it is true, been proposed from 
time to time, whose advent has been heralded with such 
high-flown praise and promises that one could not but 
suppose that the days of gunpowder were numbered ; in 
8 é 
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Yj WMVUIN, 
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a The points at which the insulated wires are cut in the bore of the gun. 
& The insulated wires leading to the induction coils and disc apparatus. 
c 
a 
The shot. 
7 The cartridge. 
Revolving discs. 
one respect or another, however, the new-comer always 
tailed to satisfy its severe military censors, and was thus 
thrown on one side and forgotten. Even nitro-glycerine 
and dynamite, of which chemists were at one time so very 
sanguine, have been entirely rejected for military pur- 
poses, and gun-cotton is indeed the only explosive mate- 
rial, besides gunpowder, to which our war authorities are 
inclined to give ear. The very important qualities which 
pyroxilin exhibits under various phases of combustion, its 
immense power, its portable and convenient character, 
and furthermore its comparative safety when in store and 
in course of manufacture, render it in some respects equal 
and even superior to gunpowder for engineering operations. 
Nevertheless, at the present moment our knowledge even 
of gun-cotton is not sufficiently advanced to allow of its 
being universally employed in the same manner as gun- 
powder, and it is to the latter, therefore, that we must still 
look for the principal source of explosive power. 
{ 
Weight for setting machinery in motion. 
Stop clock to record the number of revolutions. : i 
It appears strange that, being as it were continually 
thrown back upon our elementary explosive, no radical im- 
provements should have been effected in its manufacture ; 
we still employ the proportions of sulphur, charcoal, and 
saltpetre as they were laid down in the first instance by 
Bacon and Schwartz, and in fact so stationary has been 
our position in regard to the matter that it would appear 
almost as if perfection had long since been attained. 
While, however, the chemical composition of powder 
has remained unchanged, some very important modifica- 
tions in its rate of burning have been of late years brought 
about by merely altering its mechanical form and density. 
Indeed by thus varying its outward character, and with- 
out in any way tampering with its chemical composition, 
an exceedingly rapid, or on the other hand a leisurely, 
burning product may be secured from precisely the same 
materials. This means of controlling the explosive cha- 
racter of powder is of especial value in connection with 
d 
[ Sepz. 8, 1870 . 
