U4 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[September 33, 1880. 



But the powder made l)y him, under the new firm 

 namo, was all right, for he himself says :— 



E. & G., Deo. itli, 1815. page 157.-1 have aucceedod iu peilectiug 

 my rifle powdor, as well as I did lately with my .shot guu powder 

 ... 1 wart-anl i(a safety, clewolinoss, strength, liltit) row.il, Kuioko, 

 report, and lia regularity In shooiiiia-, botti tor rifle suid shut nun. 

 Try and aee. Use it liJte bJack powdor; no need of any men 

 atructiouB. 



H. & G.,>Iarch Uth, 1870, page 383.— Ditlmiir powder. Wur- 

 rauted for . . . its absolute ^'Oatularlty iii shooting, tioth for rifle 

 and shot jiuu. 



Mr. Dithoiar had no opportunity to repudiate this pow- 

 der, for the formation of his thu-d (?) company was too re- 

 mote to aUo w of this. The ' ' Dittmar Powder Manufactur- 

 ing Company "(No. 1;, followed the "Dittmar Powder 

 Company " (Ho. 1.) into dissolution, and for a time the 

 manufacture of the powder waa uominally suspended. In 

 the FOKESX AND SxjiEAM, of March 21at, 1878, appeared 

 an advertisement of the Dittmar Powder Coiupauy (No. 

 3;, -which informed the pubhc that the powder was at 

 that time uniform and of Mr. Dittmar 's own manufac- 

 ture ;— 



" By new proQes3 oC waterproofing this powder is now made 

 atsolutoly uaiform- Jlr. Carl Dittmar will give bla whole time 

 aud sliill to its manufuoture." 



Fiu-ther he tells us that the powder is tested : — 



F. is S., Nov. 7th, 1878, Vol. XL, Page 290.— Letter Irom Carl Ditt- 

 mar, dated Binshamton, N. Y., the location ot the manufactory : 

 —'• Every batch o£ my povdec is tested thoroughly, before it is 

 sent out." 



Moreover, he alleges it to be safe : — 



F. Se S., Nov. 31st, 1878, Vol. XT., Pa^e H31.— Letter from Carl 

 Dittmar: "In answer, . . . 1 have to say, that my powder is 

 absolutely safe when used according to intructions." 



The advertisement of the Dittmar Powder Company 

 (No. 2), also asserts it to be " efficient, uniform and safe." 



Two days after his letter of Nov. 2d, 1878, it appears 

 the test by the pressure gauge was adopted, for he tells 

 us: — 



JTOBESi AND Stream, March 6th, 1879, Vol. XII., page 93. Let- 

 ter from Carl Dittmar, dated at llinsrhamton, N. Y., ]?eb. asd, 

 1379 :— 



" Since November 5th last, all I have manufactured has been 

 tested with the CTOvernmeut pressure gauge, and is perfectly re- 

 lablo aud safe with heavy cUargoa. As 1 e.xpect our own pres- 

 sure gauy-e in a few days from the Springlield armory, I shall not 

 lota sirifle punml oC powder go out without havmjf it tested 

 thoroutrhiy fur si.raiti. 



"The kind I jiui le lust year up to Nov. 5th is also perfectly safe 

 if used acooi dint; i" liii.-i-iiojis and with no heavier charges than 

 recommended in ilit_w.tiicijlarti." 



Again Dittmar inilm-ses the powder made subse- 

 quently to Nov. .5th, 1878 :— 



Forest ano Steeam, June 19th, 1879, VoL XII., page 393, com- 

 mencing; on an accident with his powder, Carl Dittmar says:— 



" I thiulc the powder must have been purchased before the 5th 

 Of November last year, frcuu which time I made the new and 

 Blower kind. 01 this liiud, which is marked us tested with heavy 

 loads, tliere Ij-^s ni->t beeu u single complaint yet. The powder re- 

 ferred to in " Penu's " letter was of the kind Capt. Bogardus re- 

 commended and has used iu all his exhibitions. I myself should 

 not like to use it in heavy charges, but I think it is impossible 

 that ;ii drs. could Ju any harm. 1 think there must have been an 

 accidental o; erchargo, the measure being wrong, or something 

 of the kind. It he wiU send me a saiiiiilo iu a glass bottle I will 

 testitiu the Government pressure gaufo aud give honestly the 

 result; if it is too quick for safety I will admit the tact. The 

 powder now made is all tested bv the pressure gauge. A case of 

 overloading cannot happen with the new powder, and I do not 

 give any extra instruction. The powder will work no matter how 

 li is loaded." 



Just here we may explain that the date, Nov. oth, 1878, 

 shows that the test by Government pressirre gauge was 

 employed nine months before the 'Dittmar Powder 

 Manufactuiing Company (No. 2), succeeded the Ditt- 

 mar Powder Company (No. 2) It was the practice to 

 take samples of the powder to the .Sprhiglield Armoiy 

 and test them there. And further, that this thing may 

 be clearly understood, tlie gauge made for the Dittmar 

 manufactory was exactly like the Government pressure 

 gauge, and was shipped to Biugbamton from the Spring- 

 field Armory March 13Ui, 1879, five months before the 

 present Dittmar Powder JMaiiufaotunng Company (No. 2) 

 succeeded the Dittmar Powder Company (No. 2). We 

 are thus particular abijut this to show that the old Com- 

 pany posse.ssed the same iustrunients for testing the pow- 

 der that the present Company have. 



Having come safely through this tortuous course, 

 we must not be surprised by his 



Repudiation No. 3, which came in the form of a letter 

 from the business manager of the Dittmar Powder 

 Manufactm-ing Company (No. 2). 



" Mr. Von Lengerke sends me the inclosed letter, which I have 

 tboughtproper to send you for your perusal, whioli done, please 

 return. 



"He is now engaged in testing shells loiided by Squires, and ex- 

 presses the opinion that S. is eng;igcd in gathering up aU the old 

 condemned powder and sealing aud loading it. 



"A. J. Parkeh." 



In due time we received and published the report of 

 their employ^, Mr. J. Von Lengerke, who was "glad 

 to say that the powder had uo exceptive strength, and 

 that the accident reported cannot have been the fault 

 of the powder." The report of their employe was ac- 

 companied by a letter- which contained ihe extraordi- 

 nary sentences quoted below : — 



POrtESi AND Stueam, Aug. 3th, 18S0, Vol. XV,, page 10. Let- 

 td),- from Dittmar Powder Manufacturing Company (No. 3), 



"We positively declare that the Nash powder was not of our 

 manufacture, and was not sold by us, and wsis never In our i 

 session, do far as that is concerned, we are disinterested parties, 

 except inasmuch as It bears the name of Dittmar powder, anc 

 think that our t<-slsljaveahiindanrly proved lliai even that 

 not dangerous, but full below the powder which we put forward 

 as our standard. 



" Mr.Nnsh's suggestion that the can of powder may have teen 

 tampered with is something with which we bave notblng to do. 

 It it was, it was uot our powder that was tampered ivitb. 



"Weshall, following your suggestion, advertiad more f ,lly to 

 the world that we ha\c never sold, nor will we ever sell without 

 due notice to the public, any powder whatever, either unsealed, 

 unstamped, or without all proper directions for its use; and 

 hereby caution the public against buying any unsealed so-called 

 Dittmar powder." 



The powder, thus it is seen, has been made and sold, 

 within the short space of four years, under no less than 

 Ave firm titles, namely— Carl Dittmar, Dittmfir Powder 

 Company, Dittmar Powder ilanufacturing Company, 

 Dittmar Powder Company (No. 2), and Dittmar Powder 

 Manufacturing Company (No. 2). 



Now, remembering that all the "Dittmar Sporting 

 Powder " ever manufactured was made by Mr. Dittmar 

 personally,* or under his supervision, or by his wife per- 

 sonally, or under her supervision, or, at least, was made 

 and sold by firms of which he was the principal, or of 

 which he and his wife were the principals— how shall we 

 siutably characterize this action of a man engaged in the 

 manufacture of a commercial product, time and time 

 tigain warning the public against his own product ? 



What warrant had we that bye and bye, Mr. Dittmar 

 having formed a Dittmar Powder Company (No. 3), they 

 would not in turn repudiate the powder of the present 

 Dittmar Powder Manufacturing Company, and warn 

 against its use, because the cans had no label on the bot- 

 tom, and so on to thirteenthly ? Or could the purchaser 

 of the powder now sold by the " Dittmar Powder Manu- 

 faotm-ing Company" (No. 2) afford to keep it six months 

 to find out whether it was the " condemned " and dan- 

 gerous kind or not ? 



Clearly, while the "old condemned powder" bosh 

 might satisfy the manufacturers, it was no explanation 

 to offer to a man who had had his thumb blown off and 

 his business ruined, nor to other men who, by the use of 

 this powder, were ranning the risk of a Uke calamity. 



We refused to publish the letter of Aug. .'jth without a 

 protest that it dodged the question at issue. We set to 

 work to determine the true character of the powder. 

 Our duty to ourselves demanded this investigation. Much 

 more did our responsibility to our readers imperatively 

 call for it. 



We accordingly began the investigation of the nature 

 of the powder, and said so in our issue of Aug. 5th, 

 Cognizant of the fact that we were studying the powder, 

 aud after their agent had been informed that we were 

 about to publish therestdts of our investigation, the Ditt- 

 mar Powder Manufacturing Company, upon the trumped 

 up pretext that our refusal to pubUsh what we thought 

 to be a libelous letter proffered by them was imfair, ju- 

 diciously withdrew their advertisement Aug, 31st. 



Writing this letter was a characteristic attempt to turn 

 the affair into a personal controversy, in the heat of 

 which the real question of the safety of the " Dittmar 

 Sporting Powder " should be lost sight of. 



So much for the circumstances, which, fortunately for 

 ourselves, fortunately for our readers and fortunately 

 for the public, led us to determine the true character of 

 the "Dittmar Sporting Powder." 



Right here, and once for aU, we may say that while 

 the Forest and Stkeam has in times past been duped by 

 Mr. Dittmar's seeming honesty of purpose into serving 

 his end, yet the present management has never been 

 committed to an editorial indorsement of the powder. 

 That we did not realize the true nature of the compound 

 is our only excuse for having even passively permitted 

 our columns to be used in any way by him. 



To clearly comprehend the different natures of differ- 

 ent explosivp agents, some knowledge of chemistry is 

 requisite. When Mr. Dittmar is asked as to the compo- 

 sition of his powder, his favorite way of responding to or 

 evading the ciuestion is to retort, "You are not a chemist ; 

 therefore, I cannot explainit to you." It will not be neces- 

 sary hereafter for the readers of this journal to go to Mr. 

 Dittmar for their knowledge of the composition of his 

 powder, nor for a sufficient understanding of the princi- 

 ples of chemistiy to fully comprehend the true nature 

 of that compound. They will find aU that iu this paper. 



» As to the past, the quotations sulliolently prove this. In the 

 present concern Mr. Dittmar and hia wife own, or did own, a 55- 

 100 interest. An employe, of the Dittmar Powder Manufactur- 

 ing Company told us, when we went there for some powder, the 

 other day, that the stock was small, because Mr. Dittmar was in 

 the Catskill Mouatains, and in his absence no powder could 

 be manufactured. We had reason to believe, at that time, that 

 Mr. Dittmar was in Europe, but this lack of geographical knowl- 

 edge on the part of the employe does not alter what we are try- 

 ing to show, namely, that Mr. Carl Dittmar is uovy, as ho has al- 

 ways been, the responsible party la the manufacture and sale of 

 ■ Dittmar Sporting Powder." 



The present Olttraar Powder Manufacturing Company was 

 formed on, or about, Aug. Ith, 1SV9. Their manufactory is at 

 Binghamton, N. Y. 



United States Circuit Court, Southern District of New York, 

 Nov. 13th, IB79, Carl Dittmar, being duly sworn, doth depose and 

 say: "Everything at Binghamton is attended to by myself aad 

 wtto In person." 



This is not the place for a treatise on chemistry. None 

 is necessary. We sh.-iU, however, attempt to put thi^ 

 whole thing so clearly aud as concisely as possible, that 

 wliethcr chemist or not, no man who reads it need be 

 balTled longer by Mr. Dittmar's chemistry bluff. 

 I. 

 THE CHEMISTRY OF EXPLOSIVES, 



V.irious explosive agents are associated in our minds 

 with different degrees of explosive power and effect. 

 Thus, black gunpowder is a material with which we are 

 aU familiar; we know it to possess great explosive power, 

 yet with certain precautions we do not hesitate to handle 

 and employ it. 



Nitro-glycerine, on the contrary, is known in a vague 

 way at least to be in its explosion vastly different from 

 gimpowder. Its might is so tremendous, its effects so 

 terrific, that the very name of the compound is significant 

 of uncontrollable force; we hesitate to handle it, and its 

 presence inspires us with dread. 



At the beginning of our study of explosives then the 

 question meets us. Are all explosive compounds of the 

 same inherent nature ? Do they differ only in their 

 manifestations of power according as that exhibition of 

 power is made by the conditions of the explosion more 

 or less complete, or may one form of explosion be radi- 

 cally different in its nature from anotherV Evidently we 

 must determine this before going further. 



The teachings of chemistry on this point are beauti- 

 fully simple, clear and conclusive. To make them plain 

 we need but to outline some of the fundamental and 

 familiar principles of that science. We begin at the begin- 

 ning, with the molecule. 



Molecule. — A molecule is the smallest mass into which 

 any substance, solid, liquid or gas, can be divided by 

 physical or mechanical processes. Tlie text-books tell us 

 that the limit of the measurement of inoleculos is ifached 

 at about the one-five hundred millionth of an iiich. A 

 molecule is iuflnitessimally small, and it is important 

 that we have a clear appreciation of this, for small as it 

 is, in the molecide we shall find the key to this whole 

 inquiry. 



Molecular e«erfli?/.— Molecules have constant tnotion, 

 most free in gas, less free in a liquid, least in a solid. 

 It nas been estimated that the mean velocity of the 

 molecular motion of hydrogen gas, under a certain given 

 pressure, is 6,097 feet per second. Molecules have weight ; 

 they have motion ; motion and weight give energy. 

 The movement, and therefore the energy, of molecules 

 vary as the temperature of the mass. Therefore, to in- 

 crease the temperature, ia to increase the molecular en- 

 ergy. 



Pressure. — In gases the movement of the molecules 

 is in straight lines, and the movement of their aggrega- 

 tion is, therefore, in every direction to the surface of the 

 mass. The surfaces of the containing body are con- 

 stantly bombarded by these molecules. The aggregiition 

 of this bombardment — millions of molecules moving at 

 the rate of thousands of feet per second — is what we 

 call pressure. 



Pressure, it will be readily understood, varies with the 

 molecular energy ; this, in turn, varies with the heat. 

 To increase the heat, then, is to increase pressure. In- 

 creased pressure demands increased resistance by the 

 containing body, or else yielding, and an increased vol- 

 ume. Also, to convert a solid m.ass into a gas, is to in- 

 crease, or to release, its molecular energy. 



^fOTOS.— Mechanical subdivision stops with the mol- 

 ecule. Chemistry goes beyond this, and conceives each 

 molectdo to contain atoms. It does more than this ; it 

 actually breaks up the molecules, and, combining the 

 atoms of one v.-itli the atonts of others, forms new mol- 

 ectiles, which are wholly different from the old. 



Chemical reaclion.—Snch a change is termed a chemi- 

 cal reaction. It differs from a mechanical process. For 

 instance, water is a liquid mass made up of molecules. 

 Each molecule of water, it has been determined, is made 

 up of three atoms, two of hydrogen and one of oxygen. 

 Now, a drop of water may be, by mechanical processes, 

 divided and subdivided into the smallest mass attainable 

 by the most deUcate known means, and yet the ultimate 

 molecules possible to obtain, would consist of two atoms 

 of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. But by a chemi- 

 cal reaction those same molecules may be changed into 

 another substance, the hydrogen atoms uniting to form 

 molecules of hydrogen gas, and the oxygen atoms uniting 

 to form molecules of oxygen gas. For a chemical reac- 

 tion (or the union of the atoms Of different molecules) il 

 is requisite that the molecules come in contact ; there 

 must then be molecular energy ! where a sufficient de- 

 gree of this is lacking it may be stimulated by heat. 



C'oinbunHon.—The atmosphere in which we live con- 

 tains a certain proportion of oxygen. The ordinary pro- 

 cess of combustion is simply this : By the application of 

 heat themolecidar energy of the combustible substance ia 

 stimulated to such a degree that the molecules are re- 

 leased or separated from the mass and are brought into 

 contact with the molectiles of the air, when the oxygen 

 atoms of eachj by a chemical reaction. Unite to form oxy- 

 gen gas. 



But there are certain substances which have a lafge 



upply of oxygen stored up in them. Their molecules 



