502 The Recent Gun-Cotton Explosion. [October, 



could well be devised. After centrifugating to remove the 

 greater portion of the acid, the dipped cotton was placed for 

 some time under a formidable cataract, which literally beat 

 out the acid from the fibres ; breaking up and tearing into 

 pulp in a plentiful supply of water followed, and in this 

 finely divided state it was churned or poached in another 

 bath for many hours or even days. During this process also 

 a small quantity of chalk and lime-water was added to im- 

 part an alkaline rather than an acid reaction, and it was at 

 this stage of the manufacture that samples were always 

 taken for testing. Indeed, until the chemist reported the 

 batch to be free from all trace of acid,- — for it appears acid was 

 often found in the poachers, — the poaching was constantly 

 proceeded with, and not till it had passed the various tests 

 satisfactorily was the pulp pressed into shapes and dried. 



The increase of work at Stowmarket was due to the 

 execution of the large Government contract to which we 

 have alluded, and it is to be feared that press of business 

 created a lack of vigilance upon the part of the foremen and 

 others. We have it in evidence that on one occasion a 

 batch of very inferior cotton was in some way or another 

 actually finished and dried, and although the circumstance 

 created at the time much concern among the managers, still 

 no satisfactory solution of the affair could be suggested. 

 The cotton was supposed to have passed rigidly through all 

 the operations, and stored in the ordinary manner, and yet 

 on subsequent examination it was found to be fully impreg- 

 nated with nitrous fumes and in a condition similar in all 

 probability to that presented by a few of the discs delivered 

 at Upnor. Inasmuch as the chemist whose duty it was to 

 examine the samples protested that his tests had always 

 been carefully and critically applied, we must suppose that 

 either some mistake occurred in sampling or that no speci- 

 mens of this particular batch had been sent to his labora- 

 tory, but that it left the factory without being properly 

 washed and poached. What happened once may happen 

 of course again, and in the hurry and bustle that unfortu- 

 nately but too evidently existed, there is no material doubt 

 in our mind but that an impure batch of gun-cotton — the 

 charge from one of the poachers probably, weighing about 

 half a ton — was passed into the magazines. 



It is much to be regretted that better scientific super- 

 vision was not exercised in a matter so purely technical as 

 that of manufacturing gun-cotton. The particularly satis- 

 factory nature of recent experiments carried on at Woolwich 

 in regard to the combustion of gun-cotton under ordinary 



