184/.] Memoranda on Explosive Cotton. 185 



the mixture on trial having been made with cotton of two different 

 days' manufacture. 



The preceding experiments show that the worst cotton is superior to 

 the best ordnance powder in the proportion of 250 to 189 in the trials 

 under description, and that the 2d quality is superior to powder in the 

 proportion of 2\ to 1. But other considerations arise regarding 

 these inferior qualities which we have found to have faults which more 

 than outweigh the value of the superiority of range. 



The inferior kind of cotton is of yellowish colour, insoluble in 

 ether — so hygrometric that it absorbs from 5 to 10 per 100 of 

 moisture from the air in 24 hours. It soils and wets the guns and 

 leaves in them a body of wavering flame and large quantities of half 

 ignited cotton, a source of the most formidable danger to the gunners, 

 and likely to lead to explosion of ammunition in the vicinity. It is 

 rendered useless by being compressed or even tied in a cartridge bag. 

 In several instances while the loose cotton of this quality gave a very 

 respectable range, an equal quantity tied up in a cartridge bag, scarcely 

 expelled the ball from the gun. 



But the most fatal objection to the use of this inferior sort is, that 

 stored even in hermetically sealed ammunition chests, lined with copper 

 and without the contact of the air, it changes composition, and in less 

 than six weeks becomes totally inert. Thus a box proved at Dum 

 Dum on the 19th January, of which 4 oz. threw a 681b shot 250 

 yards from an 8 inch mortar, was re-opened on the 27th of February, 

 and the same quantity barely threw a 461b shot a few feet from the 

 mouth of the mortar. 



The cause of this change is the same as that which affects so many 

 cyanogen compounds, especially the hydrocyanic acid. The cotton 

 under description was most carefully prepared, and every trace of 

 acid left by the process well neutralized and washed out. Still in 

 six weeks it had changed its composition and become entirely useless, 

 and when the chest was opened there was perceptible a strong smell of 

 nitric oxyde gas. This fact is sufficient to show that it is only the 

 very best kind of cotton which can be depended on for any military 

 use. It next remains to be considered whether to this kind also there 

 may not exist such objections as may counterbalance the very great ad- 



2 c 



