1882.] 



Chemical Theory of Gunpowder. 



363 



Noble and Abel exploded successively portions of powder of the 

 same description in their apparatus, and found considerable fluctua- 

 tions in the relative quantities of the products of explosion in different 

 experiments. These fluctuations they do not explain, but state that 

 " slight accidental variations in the conditions which attend the explosion" 

 have as much influence on the relative quantities of the constituents 

 of the solid powder residue as decided differences in the composition 

 of the different powders. And as the exact nature of these " slight 

 accidental variations in the conditions which attend the explosion " is 

 not known, they conclude that the metamorphosis cannot be repre- 

 sented by a chemical equation. 



The author of this abstract has described in the paper the causes of 

 the variations in the relative quantities of the products of explosion, 

 and has explained the experimental results of Messrs. Noble and 

 Abel. And further, he has been able, with this knowledge, to repre- 

 sent the chemical metamorphosis of the English Service powders by 

 an equation. 



5. Noble and Abel assume that the samples of fine-grain and pebble 

 powders used in their numerous experiments were, respectively, of the 

 same composition, and that the samples of K.L.G. powder employed 

 in their earlier experiments, had the composition given under " I," 

 and those used in the later experiments that given under " II " in the 

 table below. 



The composition of the same description of powder is, however, not 

 constant. 



I requested the late Mr. Wills to analyse pebble and R.L.G. 

 powders from Waltham Abbey, and the results obtained by him, 

 together with those of Noble and Abel, are given in the following 

 table : — 





R.L.Gr. 



Pebble powder. 





Noble and Abel. 





Noble 











Wills. 



and 



Wills. 





I. 



II. 





Abel. 







74 -95 



74 '43 



75-10 



74-67 



74-26 





10 -27 



10-09 



8-96 



10 -07 



9-51 



Charcoal — 















10-86 



12-40 



12 -09 



12 -12 



11 -58 





0-42 



0-40 



0-54 



0-42 



0-51 



1-99 



1 -27 



2-12 



1-45 



2 55 



Ash 



0-25 



0-21 



0-20 



0-23 



33 





1-11 



1-05 



0-85 



95 



0-76 



The samples analysed by Noble and Abel were taken out of the 



