188 Memoranda on Explosive Cotton. [Feb. 



on views which further experience may modify or disprove. It would 

 be presumptuous to advance a positive opinion that the process may not 

 be cheapened and improved. Professor Schoenbein may have a method 

 of greater simplicity and economy than those employed by the numer- 

 ous experimentalists who have followed in the track of his brilliant 

 discovery. I have already tried many modifications of the acid method 

 but without success.* One plan still remains for experiment which pro- 

 mises better than the rest, and which I shall bring as soon as possible 

 to the test of a conclusive trial. I allude to the employment of nitric 

 acid previously or simultaneously submitted to the influence of a power- 

 ful voltaic current, sufficient to decompose the constituent water of the 

 nitric acid, and thus render this more suited to the conversion of the 

 cotton fibre into cyanic acid or cyamelide. 



I have to add that I have been enabled by the kindness of Mr. 

 Rogers and Mr. Blechynden, to make adequate trials of the Akundoo 

 and Simal fibres — Manilla and other kinds of Hemp— Jute — Flax — 

 Plaintain and Aloe fibre ; and that I have given fair trial to every kind 

 of cotton I could procure. I have also examined the explosive com- 

 pounds made with wood shavings, saw-dust, unsized paper, &c. The 

 general result is that cotton affords the best preparation — and the better 

 the ordinary quality of the cotton, the stronger and more permanent 

 is the explosive it affords. 



I have also tried (but merely for trial sake) the finely divided char- 

 coal obtained by igniting cotton inclose vessels — of this carbon 100 

 parts of the best Banda cotton yield \7\ to 18. As might be inferred 

 from the theory of the process, no explosive compound was generated — 

 no constituent water having bee* associated with the carbon, no substi- 

 tion of a nitrogen compound could take place. 



An economical mode of manufacture once discovered, which would, 

 bring cotton and powder to equal prices, range for range, — and the use 

 of the new explosive confined strictly to that of the very best kind, — 

 there remains no objection which I have heard of— no fault which I have 

 myself observed, which may not be fairly found with the best kinds of 

 powder also. Meanwhile although the gun cotton be too costly for 

 military use, and further experiments are required on the effects of long 



* Using for instance Anhydrous nitrous acid, prepared by distilling [the dried 

 nitrate of lead — mixtures of dried sulphurous acid and uitric oxyde gases. 



