THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
367 
REPORT 
ON 
BARON LENK’S 6TIN COTTON, 
By Professors Dr REDTENBACHER, Dr SCHROTTER, and 
Dr SCHNEIDER. 
TO 
His Excellency Eield-Marshal Joliann Ereiherr Kempen von Eichtenstamm, 
President of the Royal Imperial Commission on Gun Cotton, June, 1863. 
This Report—printed by the British Association, at their Annual Meeting, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
1863—is reprinted for the information of Members of the R.A. Institution. To which are added 
some comments, kindly furnished by F. A. Abel, Esq., F.R.S., Chemist to the War Department. 
[Note. —The interesting Report of Professors Redtenbacher, Schrotter, and Schneider contains 
some statements and theoretical considerations which, if submitted to the members of the R.A. 
Institution without comment, might pass for fully established facts and generally adopted opinions, 
instead of being accepted only as views of the authors which are open to discussion, and, to confir¬ 
mation or disproval by the results of experimental research. A few observations, in the form of 
notes, have therefore been appended to some parts of the Report, which appear especially to 
challenge criticism.—F, A. A.] 
[COMMUNICATED BY THE SECRETARY, R.A.I.] 
In accordance with Your Excellency's wish, the undersigned submit the 
following opinion relative to the objections urged against the adoption of 
gun cotton for war purposes. 
Introduction . 
It is not possible within the limits of the present Report to discuss all the 
various products which, since the discovery by Schonbein, in 1846, of a 
method of chemical treatment whereby cotton might be rendered explosive, 
have been brought forward, examined, and applied, under the various names 
of “Gun Cotton," “Pyroxylin/' “ Eulmi-coton," “ Nitro cellulose," &c.,— 
or, at any rate, to do more than mention such as have been brought under 
our notice in the course of experiments performed by us with Baron Lenk's 
gun cotton. 
It should be stated that the full Official Report, from which the preceding paper is 
taken, contained many additional Tables of Practice of the several Guns under competition, also 
extra Plates in further illustration of the Report. The Committee did not think it necessary to 
reproduce these Plates and Tables of Practice.—E. J. B. 
[VOL. III.] I I 
