ADDRESS. 25 
midable artillery, violent explosives, quick-firing arms of deadly accuracy, 
and fearful engines which, unseen, can work wholesale destruction in a, 
fleet? And what can we say of the benefits acquired by individual 
Countries in return for their continuous, and sometimes ruinous, expendi- 
ture in endeavouring to maintain themselves upon an equality with their 
neighbours in man-killing power? The conditions under which engage- 
ments by sea or land will in the future be fought have certainly become 
greatly modified from those of thirty-five years ago, and the duration of 
warfare, even between Nations in conflict who are on a fair equality of 
resources, must become reduced; but, as regards the results of a trial of 
_ strength between contending forces, similarly equipped, as they now will 
be, with the latest of modern appliances only varying in detail, these 
must, after all, depend, as of old, partly upon accident, favoured, perhaps, 
by a temporary superiority in equipment, partly upon the skill and mili- 
tary genius of individuals, and very much upon the characteristics of the 
men who fight the battles. 
What really can be said in favour of the advances made in the 
appliances of war—and this is, perhaps, the view which in such a town as 
Leeds we should keep before our eyes to the exclusion of the dark side of 
the picture—is, that by continuous competition in the development of their 
magnitude, diversity, and perfection, the resources of the manufacturer, 
the chemist, the engineer, the electrician, are taxed to the uttermost, 
with the very important, although incidental, results, that industries are 
created or expanded and perfected, trades maintained and developed, 
and new achievements accomplished in applied science, which in time 
beneficially affect the advance of peaceful arts and manufactures. In 
these ways the expenditure of a large proportion of a country’s resources 
upon material which is destroyed in creating destruction does substantially 
benefit communities, and tends to the accomplishment of such material 
progress by a Country as goes far to compensate its people for the sacri- 
fices which they are called upon to incur for the maintenance of their 
dignity among Nations. 
- From this point of view, at any rate, it may interest members of the 
British Association for the Advancement of Science, and for the promotion 
of its applications to the welfare and happiness of mankind, to hear some- 
thing of recent advances in one of the several branches of science in its 
applications to naval and military requirements with which, during a long 
_ and arduous official career, now approaching its close, I have become in 
Some measure identified. 
Since the Meeting of the Association in this town in 1858, the progress 
which has been made in the regulation of the explosive force of gun- 
_ powder, so as to adapt it to the safe development of very high energy in 
guns presenting great differences in regard to size and to the work which 
they have to perform, has been most important. The different forms of 
_ gunpowder which were applied to war-purposes in this and other countries, 
