366 
NATURE 
[JUNE 3, 1915 


ammonium sulphate by treatment with gypsum— 
a process already used in France with only partial 
success; and various methods of obtaining sul- 
phuric acid from Epsom salts and other alkaline 
earth sulphates are being tried, with what probable 
result may be judged of from Lunge’s well-known 
work on sulphuric acid manufacture, in which 
prior attempts to make use of such processes are 
described in more or less contemptuous terms. 
Indeed, the patent literature of every country is 
evidently being ransacked in the dire necessity 
which has now overtaken our enemies, and all 
sorts of suggestions, many of which have been 
tried and hitherto found wanting, are being 
exploited with a feverish activity. 
The problem which confronts a Minister of 
Germany is gradually becoming 
hopeless, unless he is given practically unlimited 
time in which to solve it. He has the men, who 
are working with a unanimity and a strenuous- 
ness which compels our respect and admiration, 
and the intelligence, knowledge, and skill of the 
captains of industry and all their appliances are at 
his disposal. But he cannot make bricks without 
straw, and the straw is gradually being denied 
him, struggle as he may. To us and to our 
Allies—thanks to our command of the sea—the 
world is all before us where to choose, and we 
have access to all the raw material we need. To 
our Minister of Munitions the problem is not want 
of material; it is want of men, and the lack of 
that strenuousness of purpose and of determina- 
tion, energy, industry, and fixity of effort which 
have been imbued into the whole German nation. 
Munitions in 

Time is of the essence of the situation, and to 
waste it in political bickerings, squabbles about 
profits and war bonuses, labour troubles, strikes, 
and “slackness” is to play directly into the 
enemy’s hands and to prolong the agony and 
wretchedness under which the whole civilised 
world is now suffering. 
EXPLOSIVES: ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
Explosives: their Manufacture, Properties, Tests 
and History. By A. Marshall. Pp. xv+624. 
(London: J. and A. Churchill, 1915.) Price 24s. 
net. 
T is twenty years since any really important 
and comprehensive book on the subject of 
Explosives has been published in England, and the 
time was therefore ripe for a work that should 
bring the subject up to date and present it as a 
whole. In doing this, however, it is obvious that 
in such a wide and highly specialised field of work 
it is necessary to exercise the greatest care in selec- 
NO. 2379, VOL. 95] 
| tion and arrangement in order to avoid undue bulk 
of matter and at the same time to present the 
subject in the clearest possible way. This is the 
task that Mr. Arthur Marshall has set himself in 
‘“Explosives, their Manufacture, Properties, 
Tests and History,’’ and the author has suc- 
ceeded in giving us a most valuable book, which 
will be welcomed by all workers on the subject. 
Part i. of the book is historical, and deals with 
the progress and development of explosives from 
Greek Fire to picric acid, and considerable space 
is given to Colonel Hime’s translation of Roger 
Bacon’s cipher instructions for the manufacture of 
gunpowder, and the reasons for supposing that 
the statements as to the great antiquity of gun- 
powder were inaccurate and based on erroneous 
translations. In this part of the book it is 
pleasant to find an appreciation of the wise and 
tactful manner in which Sir Vivian Majendie and 
his successors, Colonel Ford, Captain Thomson, 
Major Cooper-Key and their subordinates have 
carried out the working of the ‘‘ Explosives Act ”’ 
and have made it a boon to the workpeople with- 
out interfering with the development of the 
industry. 
Part ii. is devoted to black powder, and three 
‘chapters are given to the preparation of the 
ingredients and manufacture, but nothing is said 
as to the reactions taking place on the firing 
of gunpowder under varying conditions, and 
although the products of explosion of R.L.G. 
powder as determined by Nobel and Abel are 
given, not a word is said of such historical 
researches as those of Bunsen and Schischkoff 
Linck, Karolyi and Debus. 
Part ili. contains three chapters dealing with the 
manufacture of sulphuric acid and nitric acid, and 
the manipulation of waste acids. Although the 
preparation of nitric acid from Chile saltpetre is 
very fully described, the production of nitric acid 
from the air is dismissed in eight lines, which 
seems strangely inadequate in view of the Ger- 
mans being at the present time largely dependent 
upon synthetic nitric acid for the preparation of 
their high explosives. 
Part iv. is on the nitric esters of carbohydrates, 
and commences with a chapter on the Theory of 
Nitration of Cellulose, which gives the work done 
by many observers fairly fully, and then suddenly 
branches off to the commercial uses of pyroxylin 
and collodion. Following this come chapters on 
cellulose, manufacture of nitro-cellulose, stabi- 
lisation of nitro-cellulose, and the nitric esters of 
other carbohydrates. 
Part v. deals equally fully with the nitric esters of 
glycerin, whilst smokeless powders occupy Part vi. 
These first six divisions of the book contain 



