PROTECTED GUNPOWDER. 117 
All other remedies are incompatible with pepsine, if administered at the same time; 
all such medicines should he given three hours after. 
Frank Vincer. 
Pharmacie Dalpiaz, Paris, August 1st, 18G5. 
PROTECTED GUNPOWDER. 
Mr. Gale’s invention having survived the most severe and complex trials, which are 
the measles of the infancy of an invention, it is but fair that we should draw more 
particular attention to it than has been done by the scattered paragraphs w r hich have 
from time to time appeared in our columns. From being a chimerical idea, calculated 
to astonish country gentlemen and provoke a smile of pity on the faces of respectable 
authorities, the non-explosive gunpowder, as it is familiarly called, has worked its way 
upward to be recognised as a definite practical fact. The paragraphs in quiet country 
papers which first announced its existence have been expanded to metropolitan leaders, 
and every true Briton knows the importance of a subject which has attained to a leading 
article. The experiments which were made on Saturday evening at Torwood, Wimble¬ 
don, differed in almost no particular from those by which the efficiency of Gale’s pro¬ 
tective powder have hitherto been tested ; possibly because these experiments have been 
as subtle and searching as could well be devised. Slow matches were burned into vessels 
holding gunpowder mixed with the protective powder, and they only served to ignite a 
few isolated grains. Vesuvian matches were flung into the powder, and were ignomi- 
niously extinguished. A red-hot poker was stirred through the powder, with no better 
(or worse) effect. But by far the most convincing test is that which was proposed by 
Lord Bury—namely, that a quantity of pure gunpowder should be placed in the centre 
of the protected gunpowder and the former fired. This experiment was also exhibited 
on Saturday ; and if we remember the keen, permeating power of flame, especially where 
that flame has been propelled in every direction by a vigorous explosion, we can under¬ 
stand how gunpowder that may resist this attempt at ignition may, with some show of 
reason, be pronounced safe. The pure gunpowder was placed in a sort of pit inside 
the vessel, and carefully covered over with the protected powder ; when the former ex¬ 
ploded, it simply blew what was above it into the air, and had no effect in igniting the 
great mass which lay beneath and around it. Thereafter a portion of that surrounding 
mass was riddled in the usual way, and the residue exploded as ordinary powder will 
explode. We may assume this test to be conclusive, and proceed to mention a few of 
the advantages accruing from the practical use of the invention. 
In the first place, the cost of the carriage of ordinary gunpowder is £7.10s. per ton, the 
highness of the rate being, of course, caused by the dangerous properties of the material. 
The carriage of a ton of protected powder for the same distance is 10s. But, if mixed 
in the proportion which Mr. Gale suggests as being indubitably safe, there are three 
tons weight of his powder to every ton of gunpowder ; so that the cost of carriage of 
an actual ton of gunpowder, accompanied by its sufficient quantity of protective mate¬ 
rial, is £2, thereby saving £5. 10s. per ton. 
Then, as to storage of gunpowder, great difficulty is experienced in obtaining sites 
for magazines, Government not allowing above a certain quantity of powder to be stored 
in any mill or magazine, however remote or apparently safe. Mixed with Gale’s protec¬ 
tive material, it matters not where the powder be stored. Thousands of barrels might 
with perfect safety be placed in vaults beneath the House of Commons, and a dozen 
black-visaged Guy Fawkes’s allowed to brandish torches in whatsoever subterranean 
Walpurgis-dance they pleased. The cost of forming shell-proof magazines within our 
shore batteries is at once done away with ; and the enormous expense of building strong 
powder magazines in or near large cities is no longer necessary. Iron ships need no 
longer resemble gigantic bomb-shells which only require a spark to send them flying 
into the air ; barrels of this powder may be kept with perfect safety on the deck of a 
ship when in action. In short, the cost of the storage of this powder is no greater than 
that of so many barrels of flour ; while the further recommendation—greater than any 
saving of cost—that thereby the absolute prevention of explosion is ensured, is so ap¬ 
parent that it need scarcely be mentioned. 
