26 rEePoRT—1890. 
until within the last few years, presented comparatively few differences in 
composition and methods of manufacture from each other, and from the 
gunpowder of our ancestors. The replacement of smooth-bore guns by 
rifled artillery, which followed the Crimean War, and the great increase in 
the size and power of guns necessitated by the application of armour to 
ships and forts, soon called, however, for the pursuit of investigations 
having for their object the attainment of means for variously modifying 
the action of fired gunpowder, so as to render it suitable for artillery of 
different calibres whose power could not be effectively, or, in some in- 
stances, safely, developed by the use of the only kind of gunpowder then 
employed in English artillery of all calibres. 
The means resorted to in the earlier of these investigations, and 
adhered to for many years, for controlling the violence of explosion of 
gunpowder, consisted exclusively in modifying the size and form, density 
and hardness, of the individual masses composing a charge, with the 
object of varying the rate of burning of those masses in a gun; it 
being considered that, as the proportions of ingredients generally em- 
ployed very nearly correspond to those required for the development 
of the greatest chemical energy by the thoroughly-incorporated materials, 
the attainment of the desired results should be, if possible, effected 
rather by modifications of the physical and mechanical characters of gun- 
powder, than by variations of the proportions and chemical characters 
of its ingredients. 
The varieties of powder from time to time introduced into artillery- 
service, as the outcome of investigations in this direction, were of two 
distinct types: the first of these consisted of further developments of the 
old granulated or corned powder, being produced by breaking up more or 
less highly-pressed slabs of the material into grains, pebbles, or boulders 
of approximately uniform size and shape. Gunpowders of this class, 
ranging in size from about 1,000 pieces to the ounce to about 6 pieces to 
the pound, have performed efficient service, and certain of them are still 
employed. The character of the other type is based upon the theoretical 
view that uniformity in the action of a particular gunpowder, when em- 
ployed under like conditions, demands not merely identity in regard to 
composition, but also identity in form, size, density, and structure of the 
individual masses of which a charge consists. To approach the practical 
realisation of this view, equal quantities of one and the same mixture of 
ingredients, presented in the form of powder of uniform fineness and 
dryness, must be submitted to a particular pressure, for a fixed period, 
in moulds of uniform size, the surrounding conditions and subsequent 
manufacturing processes being as nearly as possible alike. Practical 
experience has, however, shown that uniformity in the ballistic properties 
of black powder can be even more readily secured by the thorough blend- 
ing or mixing together of different products of manufacture, presenting 
some variations in regard to size, density, hardness, or other features, than 
