1871.] The Recent Gun-Cotton Explosion. 497 



disappeared, and then a treatment with carbonate of lime 

 followed to impart an alkaline tone to the material. The 

 pulp was afterwards pressed into discs or cakes of any 

 desirable form, and dried upon wire nets at a somewhat 

 high temperature. It is not until gun-cotton of this kind 

 is heated to something above 300 F. that any trace of 

 nitrous fumes are perceptible, and its actual igniting point 

 is seldom below 350 ; for, as will readily be understood, 

 the exceedingly perfect washing process to which the cotton 

 is subjected must infallibly remove all trace of free acid. 



We are compelled to make these few preliminary 

 remarks before approaching the subject of the recent 

 explosion, in order that our readers may fully understand 

 the actual modus operandi adopted at Stowmarket, and at 

 the same time be cognisant of the circumstances that 

 seemed to justify the Gun-cotton Company in undertaking 

 the manufacture of this powerful explosive. The confidence 

 expressed by the many eminent authorities on the subject who 

 composed the committees of which we have made mention, 

 certainly constituted a very substantial guarantee of the 

 comparative safety of the material ; and, moreover, the 

 practical experiments made with considerable quantities of 

 the material by the Royal Engineers, and mine and quarry 

 managers, for several years past, confirmed the favourable 

 opinion formed by scientific men. 



Under these circumstances, then, it is not surprising that 

 the Stowmarket Company prosecuted the manufacture of gun- 

 cotton, and that, alive to recent improvements, it adopted in 

 later years the simple and ingenious modifications elaborated 

 by Professor Abel, whose persevering and exhaustive in- 

 vestigations are well known to all of us. Year by year the 

 fame of gun-cotton as an invaluable mining agent spread 

 abroad, and as a new and particularly effective method of 

 removing submarine rocks and sunken wrecks, as likewise 

 for employment in torpedoes, it has stood for some time 

 without a rival. It should be borne in mind that a more 

 powerful explosive than gunpowder is in many warlike 

 matters simply indispensable, and military men were indeed 

 delighted to find in gun-cotton an agent which, while free 

 from those risky attributes that characterise most of the 

 violently detonating compounds known to chemists, was at 

 the same time possessed of such extraordinary force. 

 Official committees had lauded its qualities ; military men 

 without exception were satisfied with its practical results ; 

 for industrial purposes it was extensively employed ; the 

 scientific reports were unanimously in its favour ; and in 



