DO 
MINUTES OF PllOCEEDINGS OF 
One man could thus cut about 150 lbs. a day, so that the granulation of 
pebble-powder at that time required the continual employment of nearly 
20 men for the very small out-turn of about 100 barrels a week. 
The following extracts from the proof books will show the nature of the 
powder manufactured at this time :—- 
Brand 
of 
powder. 
Density. 
Date 
of 
experiment. 
Number 
of 
experiment. 
Muzzle 
velocity. 
Pressures in tous. 
A. 
B. 
C. 
15. 10. 70 
1-761 
27.10. 70 
357 
1460 
17-1 
18-1 
16-3 
14. 11. 70 
1-765 
8. 12. 70 
367 
1446 
18-1 
18-0 
15-6 
31.12. 70 
1-757 
1. 2.71 
389 
1409 
15-4 
15-4 
14-6 
21. 1.71 
1-759 
1. 2. 71 
392 
1409 
12-6 
13-1 
12-1 
3. 2. 71 
1-761 
20. 3.71 
408 
1405 
14-1 
14-2 
13-9 
25. 3. 71 
1-759 . 
5. 4.71 
410 
1406 
15*5 
15-0 
14-8 
It will be observed that there is a steady decrease in the velocity at proof. 
Some of the velocities are even lower; but these samples give an idea of the 
general average of the work produced at this time. 
Meanwhile experiments were being carried on with a view to turn out 
pebbles in larger quantities and more economically than by the tedious process 
of chopping up with knives. The late Captain Smith, It.A.—at that time 
Assistant Superintendent at Waltham Abbey—hit upon a plan which was 
very successful in doing the same sort of work. 
This was by making a succession of knives come into operation one after the 
other, by being arranged longitudinally on the circumference of two long 
rollers in the following fashion :— 
Fig-. 2. Scale A- 
The cake was thus very rapidly cut up into strips, but in putting the latter 
through the second time endways much time was lost, as each strip had to be 
picked up separately by hand before being put through. He contemplated 
having a second pair of rollers of the same description as the first, for the 
strips to pass through, but was unable to devise a method of conveying them 
from the first to the second pair of rollers, and so his plan for a time remained 
in abeyance. 
Colonel Younghusband thought that the strips could be conveyed, as they 
passed the first pair of rollers, in succession to a second pair, which had the 
knives arranged circumferentially instead of longitudinally, as shown in the 
following woodcut; — 
