THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
225 
THE SPONTANEOUS 
IGNITION OE OILED COTTON OR SILK-WASTE, 
CJONIBIBUXED By 
MAJOR V. D. MAJENDIE, HA. 
The following paper on the spontaneous ignition of oiled cotton= 
waste, and similar materials, will possess, it is believed, a practical value 
—at any rate, for those officers of the regiment who are engaged in the 
management of the Government factories, or who have charge of stores 
and other establishments in which, on the one hand, the improper and 
dangerous collection of greasy waste is a risk which can only be 
effectively guarded against by constant vigilance, while, on the other 
hand, the consequences which might result from the accumulation of a 
material so prone to spontaneous ignition would be most disastrous. It 
is doubtful if this risk is always recognised to its full extent by those who 
are interested in its exclusion. Certainly, in many private gunpowder 
and firework factories the necessity of strictly forbidding oiled cotton- 
waste in the powder buildings is not adequately appreciated; and it is 
no uncommon thing to find this material deposited in corners of the 
press and corning houses, on the window sills, or even in some instances 
among the semi-manufactured powder. 
The accompanying paper shews that oiled cotton waste is an article 
which requires only a very moderate heat and no great mass of the 
cotton to produce ignition. In one instance, it will be observed, “ a 
quantity of oiled cotton that just filled a common lucifer match box" 
ignited after an hour's exposure to 166° Fahr. In other instances 
about one^sixteenth of a cubic foot of the material ignited at a tem¬ 
perature of 130° Fahr. These facts illustrate the grave and urgent 
character of the risk which exists when oiled cotton waste is deposited, 
even in very small quantities and for a very short space of time, in 
moderately elevated temperatures—such temperatures as exist in the 
majority of factories, in the neighbourhood of a steam-pipe, or under 
exposure to the sun's rays. 
Since the foregoing remarks were written, Mr. Galletly has, at my 
suggestion, made some experiments with silk-waste in comparison with 
cotton, in order to determine how far the danger which undoubtedly 
exists when the latter material is present, would be got rid of by the use 
2G 
