( 494 ) * [October, 



IV. THE RECENT GUN-COTTON EXPLOSION. 



tT is now some eight years ago that the Gun-cotton 

 Factory at Stowmarket was first established. The 

 great improvements which had just then been completed 

 in Austria in the way of manufacturing the explosive 

 seemed to promise a hopeful future, and inspired 

 chemists and manufacturers with fresh confidence in its 

 qualities and utility. General von Lenk's modifications in 

 the preparation of pyroxylin had been so far successful as to 

 furnish a material at once serviceable and under control, 

 and if the Austrian gun-cotton was not perhaps all that a 

 military or industrial explosive should be, still its complete 

 and perfect elaboration appeared imminent. Indeed, until 

 Lenk took the matter in hand, the employment of pyroxylin 

 as an explosive agent had never been attended with 

 even the remotest success, and our readers no doubt 

 well remember the terrible and frequent accidents that 

 characterised the first attempts to deal with the material in 

 large quantities. Explosions in England, France, and 

 Germany, marked the era of its first short and disastrous 

 reign, and unanimously almost, both abroad and at home, 

 it was resolved to abandon a compound so dangerous 

 and little understood as Schonbein's newly discovered nitro- 

 cellulose proved to be. 



Von Lenk paused for a time before bringing the subject 

 again forward, so as to allow prejudice to subside as much as 

 possible, and then with matured plans and fresh experiences 

 sought to obtain further consideration for his protege. 

 Great credit is in truth due to the Austrian Engineer Officer 

 in prosecuting so earnestly his researches with an agent 

 which had excited such universal suspicion and distrust ; 

 but fortunately the improvements effected by him were so 

 simple and obvious, that his Government deigned once 

 more to make a trial of the invention. And here, at the 

 risk of being tiresome, it behoves us just briefly to re- 

 capitulate in what manner General von Lenk's system 

 of manufacture differed from the ordinary method of proce- 

 dure. The first form of gun-cotton was, as we know 

 very well, that of cotton-wool, the cellulose being immersed 

 into a mixture of strong sulphuric and nitric acids for 

 a certain period, to effect its conversion into a compound 

 highly charged with nitrogen. Little care was taken to 

 secure a material of the highest explosive force, nor was the 

 elimination from the finished gun-cotton of free acid or 



