498 The Recent Gun-Cotton -Explosion. [October, 



face of these circumstances, Government very naturally 

 decided upon its adoption into the service. 



In the midst of this comes the appalling explosion at 

 Stowmarket. An establishment covering some three acres 

 of ground, and consisting of factories, outhouses, and 

 magazines, so built that the group of buildings presented 

 the appearance of a little model village, has been literally 

 scattered to the winds by the ignition of some ten tons or 

 more of our new military explosive, and this just as the 

 consummation of its success was at hand. Where the 

 principal magazine once stood, an extensive pond 15 feet in 

 depth is now to be found, located, it would appear, in the 

 middle of a ploughed field, for so complete is the annihila- 

 tion of the building that scarcely a shattered fragment re- 

 mains to mark its previous whereabouts. The workshops 

 and outhouses around present one mass of ruin and deso- 

 lation, and the strong iron shafting and metal piping have 

 been dashed into fragments as numerous and small as those 

 of the most fragile portions of the structure. Some of the 

 roofs and walls are literally shivered into atoms, and the 

 only whole pile remaining is singularly enough a tall brick 

 chimney. When we state that out of 130 men, women, and 

 children that were employed upon the premises as many 

 actually as 100 were killed or wounded, the destructive 

 nature of the catastrophe will indeed be fully understood. 



To what cause is the explosion to be ascribed ? Shall we 

 straightway determine once for all to give up gun-cotton, 

 which as long as it has been known has always borne the 

 character of a faithless and unreliable servant, and thus have 

 done with it for ever ? Shall we discard it as a material 

 whose nature is too little understood, and whose behaviour 

 we find it impossible to control ? But if we decide on such a 

 course, then to what substitute shall we turn our attention? 

 — to nitroglycerine, dynamite, picric powder, or some of 

 the fulminates,— for compounds of this sort we certainly 

 must have for warlike purposes. Truly, we cannot but 

 hesitate before adopting any of these latter explosives, for 

 in many cases their stability is, we know, more than doubt- 

 ful, and thus we shall do wisely to make at any rate some 

 inquiry into the cause of the terrible event, and not to 

 throw away ruthlessly all the information and experience 

 that has been acquired during the past fifteen years. 



In the first place, however, irrespective of the actual 

 cause of explosion, we cannot admit for one moment that 

 there was any reason on earth why its effects should have 

 been so disastrous. We have here a store of a dozen tons 



