544 
DR. H. DEBUS OR THE CHEMICAL THEORY OF GUNPOWDER. 
carbonic acicl and oxide, and these, together with the potassic sulphide, nitrogen and 
free sulphur amount to about 96 per cent, of the exploded powder. The following 
calculation leads to the conclusion that the oxygen of the charcoal and of the moisture 
in the powder does not enter into the composition of the principal products of explosion, 
but is eliminated in union with hydrogen in the form of water. 
According to analysis, the composition of the F. G. powder is represented by the 
symbols 
«/ 
16KNO s +0-044K a SO 4 +6*88S+20*8lC+10-78H+3*52O 
if ash and moisture of the charcoal are left out of consideration. In Experiment 17 
of Noble and Abel the hydrogen in ammonite carbonate, sulphuretted hydrogen, and 
in a fiee state, added together is equal to 4T atoms. This number deducted from 
10 / 8 atoms, the hydrogen of the charcoal, leaves as difference 6'68 atoms. These 
6-68 atoms of hydrogen must have formed water, for which operation 3 34 atoms of 
oxygen, or almost the exact quantity contained in the charcoal, is required. 
Also the moisture of the powder cannot have contributed any oxygen, because if it 
had, an equivalent quantity of hydrogen ought to have been set free, or entered into 
combination with nitrogen, carbon, or sulphur. And as in all other experiments of 
Noble and Abel, executed with F. G. powder from Waltham Abbey, the number of 
atoms of hydrogen, free or combined, which occur amongst the products of combustion, 
is less than 4*1, it follows, that in these other experiments also the oxygen of the 
charcoal or of the moisture of the powder has taken no part in the explosion. And 
finally, since several hundred grammes of powder were exploded in a hermetically 
closed steel cylinder, oxygen from the atmosphere cannot have entered into the com¬ 
position of products of combustion of the powder. 
If, then, we find in one of the experiments, after the potassic hyposulphite has been 
replaced by its equivalent of potassic sulphide, that the sum of the quantities of 
oxygen contained in the potassic carbonate and sulphate, carbonic acid, and oxide 
exceeds the oxygen derived from the decomposed saltpetre, we may assume that this 
excess of oxygen is owing to some sulphate which had been formed during the process 
of analysis, and, accordingly, we shall be justified in deducting this excess of sulphate 
from the total quantity found. 
The errors which have been explained on p. 533, due to the mode of calculation, 
will compensate each other, if the mean of all the experimental results be taken. 
If all these corrections are carried out we obtain in the form of a chemical equation 
an approximately correct expression of the metamorphosis of the powders of Waltham 
Abbey. This equation, deduced from the 31 experiments published by Noble and 
Abel, is: 
