8 REPORT—1863. 
barrel of 400 Ibs. placed near a sloop in 10 feet water at 18 feet distance, 
shattered it to pieces and threw the fragments to a height of 400 feet. 
All experiments made by the Austrian Artillery Committee were conducted 
on a grand scale—36 batteries of 6- and 12-pounders having been con- 
structed for gun-cotton, and practised with that material. The reports of 
the Commissioners are all based on trials with ordnance from 6-pounders to 
48-pounders smooth-bore and rifled cannon. The trials with small fire- 
arms haye been comparatively few, and are not reported on. The trials 
for blasting and mining purposes were also made on a large scale by the 
Imperial Engineers Committee, and several reports have been made on the 
subject. 
The Committee desire to put upon record their conviction that the subject 
has neither chemically nor mechanically received the thorough investigation 
which it deserves. There remain many exact measures still to be made, and 
many important data to be obtained. The phenomena attending the explo- 
sion of both gun-cotton and gunpowder have to be investigated, both as to 
the temperatures generated in the act of explosion, and the nature of the 
compounds which result from them under circumstances strictly analogous 
to those which occur in artillery practice; and until these are accurately 
ascertained, it is impossible to reconcile the apparent contradictions between 
the mechanical phenomena which result from the employment of gun-cotton 
gases and gunpowder gases, when employed to do the same kind of me- 
chanical work. 
APPENDIX. 
I.—System of Manufacture of Gun-cotton as carried on in the Imperial Austrian 
Establishment. By F. A. Asut, F.R.S. 
(1) The cotton employed is of superior quality, tolerably free from seed ; 
it is carded loosely, twisted, and made up into skeins before conversion. The 
strands of the cotton composing the skeins are of two sizes—the larger being 
intended for cannon-cartridges, and the other for small-arm cartridges and 
bursters. 
(2) Preparatory Preparation of the Cotton—The cotton, made up into 
skeins weighing about 3 ounces each, is washed in a solution of pure carbo- 
nate of potassa of the specific gravity 1-02, being immersed in the boiling 
solution for a short time. Upon removal from the alkaline liquid, the skeins 
are placed in a centrifugal machine, by which the greater portion of the 
liquid is separated. The skeins are now washed in clear running water, 
either by allowing them to remain in it for three or four hours, or else by 
washing each skein by hand for a few minutes. They are then again 
worked in a centrifugal machine and afterwards dried—in summer by the 
rays of the sun, but during winter in a drying-house heated by air-pipes to 
between 30° and 38° C.; the latter plan usually takes four or five days. 
(8) Production of the Gun-cotton.—The nitric acid employed has a spec. grav. 
of 1:53, and the sulphuric acid a spec. gray. of 1:82. They are mixed in the 
ea of three parts by weight of sulphuric acid and one part of nitric 
acid. 
Two skeins (about 6 ounces) of the cotton are immersed at one time in 
the mixed acids, and moved about for a few moments with iron paddles. 
They are then raised upon a grating above the level of the acids and submitted 
to gentle pressure; thence they are transferred to covered stone jars, each of 
