269 
MODERN GUNPOWDER AND CORDITE. 
(A Lecture delivered, at the Loyal Artillery Institution, January 23rd, 1893).* 
BY 
LIEUT.-COLONEL P. W. BARKER, R.A. 
Colonel C. Txencii, R.A., in the Chaiii. 
The Chairman :—It is not necessary, gentlemen, to introduce the 
lecturer to you. I will call upon Colonel Barker at once to deliver the 
lecture which he has kindly prepared for us. 
Colonel Trench and Gentlemen. —A most interesting lecture on 
explosives was delivered in this Hall, not many months ago, by a dis¬ 
tinguished officer 'whose name is well known to us all, and whose 
services have been with the Royal Regiment of Artillery. The sub¬ 
stances which he discussed in his lecture included, among many others, 
those whose manufacture and characteristics we are about to deal with 
this evening, namely, modern gunpowder and cordite. He, as Her 
Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Explosives, treated (and, I submit, very 
properly treated) all the substances as explosives. I propose, however, 
to consider two of them, modern gunpowder and cordite, as propellants, 
and, as such, to discuss their manufacture, character and qualities, up 
to present date and recent experience. 
It is hoped, therefore, that what I submit to you this afternoon may 
prove a not unsatisfactory sequel to the interesting lecture to which I 
have already referred. 
Modern gunpowder, as distinguished from that in use up to a com- Gunpowder, 
paratively recent date, may be classified as a reliable propellant,” 
whose powers are under control, and from which almost identical results 
may be expected under relatively similar circumstances or conditions. 
The older gunpowder was a powerful explosive whose violence was only 
conjectured, and whose characteristics were a bar to all progress in 
scientific gunnery. There are black powders now in existence and 
1 Some of the diagrams, &c., connected with the Gunpowder portion of this lecture are taken 
from a paper read on “ Modern Gunpowder as a Propellant,” by the lecturer, in 1890, at R.U.S. 
Institution, and permission has been kindly granted to reproduce those required. 
5. yol. xx, 
