THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
377 
of the gunpowder. It is useless to advert here to the conditions under 
which charcoal is here produced by the common charcoal-burners. 
Is Gun Cotton Spontaneously Combustible ? 
12, Finally, there still remains the consideration, whether the danger 
of the spontaneous combustion of gunpowder is so great that it cannot be 
recommended for shooting purposes. 
Spontaneous combustion is well defined by Lieut.-Col. Baron von Ebner, 
his definitions having reference to the military conditions. 
Whence, then, have arisen the allegations of spontaneous combustion, 
and on what basis do they rest? Assuredly, they receive no countenance 
from the experience acquired by chemists, who in preparing gun cotton 
have each operated in a different manner. Pelouze maintains that the process 
of azotizing is finished in a few minutes. The explosive nature of the 
compound of this chemist, as well as that of Boucher, is therefore 
attributable to a composition wholly different from that of the Hirtenberg 
cotton. 
Nor are apprehensions of spontaneous combustion deducible from any fair 
application of theory. Whatever theoretical objections there may be at the 
present time applicable, were also applicable twelve years ago. In the summer 
of 1862, the Simmeringer Haide explosion (already adverted to) occurred, 
and we may fairly assume that the list of theoretical assumptions favouring 
the idea of spontaneous explosion was then pretty well exhausted. In the 
Simmeringer Haide magazine, however, gun cotton and gunpowder were 
stored together. To have imputed the explosion to spontaneous ignition 
of gun cotton, was altogether unwarranted by evidence. With equal show 
of probability might it have been imputed to the spontaneous ignition of 
the gunpowder. 
[An assertion which is not supported by any of the arguments put forth in this Report, and for 
which it cannot be admitted that there is any foundation]. 
The latter view might be supported by the experience of numerous powder 
explosions where not an atom of gun cotton was present, and yet the cause 
was never ascertained. 
Many probable reasons, however, may be adduced favouring the belief 
that the Hirtenberg cotton did not explode spontaneously : these probabilities 
rest on grounds both theoretical and practical. 
j Experimental Proofs demonstrate that lenJcs Gun Cotton is not spontaneously 
combustible . 
13. The history of gun cotton as chronicled by chemists and artillerists, 
short though the history be, is so full of records of explosion under un¬ 
expected circumstances, that an unbiassed mind can hardly fail to be impressed 
with the belief that amongst the ordinary conditions of military practice, 
there may be some competent to induce the spontaneous combustion of this 
material. Nevertheless, the experience of Baron Lenk, acquired daring a 
period extending over more than ten years, is more pregnant with reliable 
testimony than can be found in the entire remaining history of this material. 
