THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION - . 
£89 
themselves, render such depots quite safe, provided operations connected 
with gunpowder (such as the making up or breaking up .of cartridges) 
are not carried on at or in close proximity to such magazines. It is 
only in conducting manipulations with gunpowder that danger may 
arise (from any causes excepting fire or electric discharges); and there¬ 
fore any operations with powder, such as the making up of cartridges, 
or any transactions involving the frequent issue and receipt of powder, 
or the opening or re-packing of powder packages, should be imperatively 
conducted in establishments distinct from those simply devoted to the 
preservation of reserve supplies. 
The recent powder explosion revived the discussion which arose some 
years ago as to the probable advantages to be derived, in point of safety, 
from a dilution of gunpowder, for purposes of storage and transport, 
with some incombustible non-conducting material, which, by isolating 
the grains from each other, would prevent the transmission of fire from 
one to those surrounding it. Although quantities of gunpowder may 
thus be rendered practically non-explosive, there can be no doubt that 
the possibilities of accident must be considerably increased by the 
additional manipulations to which the powder must be subjected in the 
application of such a safeguard. If, as in the case of compressed gun¬ 
cotton, gunpowder could be preserved in a sufficiently wet condition to 
be perfectly uninflammable, the drying, as a final manufacturing 
operation, being simply deferred until the material was required for use, 
the protection afforded by a diluent could be secured without the 
introduction of any extra operations involving, by their adoption, the 
usual risks invariably attendant upon manipulations with an explosive. 
The impracticability of such a course need, however, be hardly pointed 
out. In this particular respect, therefore, gun-cotton possesses a decided 
superiority over gunpowder, especially as for almost every purpose to 
which it can be advantageously applied it may be employed in the wet 
perfectly uninflammable condition as effectively as if perfectly dry, by 
the adoption of very simple modes of exploding it.* Supplies of gun¬ 
cotton in the condition in which it can actually be used without further 
preparation may therefore be stored without the precautionary measures 
indispensable in the case of gunpowder. 
Experiments on a considerable scale made by the late Government 
Committee on Gun-cotton, &c., demonstrated conclusively that when 
stored in small quantities (two or three hundred pounds) dynamite and 
dry gun-cotton are unquestionably much less dangerous in their 
character than gunpowder. Such quantities, even if confined in strong 
boxes and contained in buildings filled with inflammable matter, may 
burn away entirely, when these are set on fire, without developing 
explosion; but the burning of 5 to 6 cwt. of these materials under 
similar conditions may terminate in an explosion, unless they be less 
* In experiments recently conducted by the late Gun-cotton Committee at Eastbourne, two 
separate tons of compressed gun-cotton, in the Avet condition in which it is now stored by Govern¬ 
ment, were exposed to fierce fires in strong magazines, the gun-cotton being confined in stout boxes 
and in wooden tanks. No explosion occurred \ the gun-cotton w T as slowly converted into gases and 
vapour. 
