gunpowder : its manufacture and conveyance. 
55 
and storekeepers, the greater is tlie danger of carelessness on 
the part of some amongst them. 
r Many a one has said, with the foppish young lord, who so 
much excited the anger of Hotspur at Holmedon, 
That it was great pity, so it was, 
That villainous saltpetre should be digged 
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed. 
But, strange as it may seem at first sight, gunpowder and such 
compounds are as much used in peace as in war. What with 
practising, salutes, experiments, and reviews, our Army, Navy, 
and Volunteers burn every year as much gunpowder as would 
be required for half-a-dozen battles and a siege or two. But it 
is in mining, quarrying, and engineering works ; in a word, for 
industrial purposes generally, that gunpowder is chiefly used ; 
and as strife and peaceful industry cannot exist together, a war, 
on the whole, tends to lessen rather than increase the consump- 
tion of explosive substances. During the great conflict in 
America the sale and import of gunpowder fell off enormously. 
It is said that the same thing was noticed in France during 
the Crimean War ; and probably the present war in Spain, by 
stopping the iron mines of the North, has diminished the 
import of blasting powder to a greater extent than it has 
accelerated that of powder specially manufactured for military 
purposes. 
The following figures will give an idea of the amount of 
gunpowder employed in mining operations. It is estimated 
that in coal-mines about 80 lbs. of powder are used for every 
thousand tons of coal raised. In mines of lead and other 
minerals, which are found in hard crystalline rocks, about 
7,000 lbs. of blasting-powder are required for every thousand 
tons of ore. To quarry a similar quantity of sandstone 1 70 lbs. 
would be used ; while for the harder granite the amount would 
be 650 lbs. 
The quantity of gunpowder exported from England has 
not increased very rapidly of late years. In 1860 it was 
1 1,078,436 lbs., of a declared value of 353, 101Z. In 1865 it 
had risen to 16,833,723 lbs., valued at 457, 0781. ; and in 1870 
it was 17,357,668 lbs., valued at 427,229 l. The increase in 
weight, with a decrease in value from 1865 to 1870, is due in 
a great measure to the fact that we export an immense quantity 
of gunpowder of an inferior quality to non-British ports in 
Western Africa ; and it is in this cheap sort of gunpowder that 
the chief increase has taken place, while there has been a fall- 
ing off in the more valuable kinds. Thus in 1870 no less than 
4,637,066 lbs., or more than 25 per cent, of the whole export, 
