THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
77 
tKe former he mentioned its extreme cleanliness, owing to the absence of 
residue; the freedom from thick smoke or bad smell, and the safety and 
ease with which it could be made. Among the disadvantages he stated that 
the effects were less regular; that it burnt but slowly in cartridges; that it 
did not burn at all when compressed in tubes; and that the barrel was 
moistened by water produced during the combustion. He also pointed out 
the danger arising from the low temperature at which it would take fire. 
At the delivery of this lecture the ingredients which Schonbein used were 
not known, because the patent had not been published, but the cotton wool 
was supposed to be treated with a mixture of two parts sulphuric to one of 
nitric acid. At so early a stage it was premature to form a decisive opinion 
on the prospects of gun-cotton; Professor Brande pronounced that it would 
no doubt be used extensively for mining purposes, and for several military 
engineering operations; but was doubtful whether it could be adapted for 
the use of large or small guns. 
Among the purposes to which gun-cotton was applied at this early period 
of its existence was the manufacture of rockets. What sort of flight was 
obtained with the rockets so made I have not found mentioned, but the 
idea of this application being successful is at present rejected by the best 
authorities. They consider it the purpose for which, of all others, gun¬ 
cotton is the least suited. The only fact I have met with is that the 
process of making the rockets killed three men. The accident occurred in 
Mr Wade’s manufactory at West Ham. The method of making them was to 
insert successive layers of cotton and to ram down each layer separately by 
hoisting up a block of wood with a rope and letting it fall into the rocket 
case. The foreman of the works had so little fear of danger that he 
frequentty (as he stated at the inquest) held the cases between his knees 
whilst he rammed down the cotton, but the workmen had orders to retire 
behind screens, put. up for their safety, whenever the block or “ monkey ” 
was going to fall. Whether these men had neglected the precaution is not 
stated, but an explosion happened; two of them were killed at once, and 
the third died of his injuries.* 
The date of this unfortunate occurrence was the 24th June; on the 14th 
July there happened a more serious accident at the new factory established 
by Messrs Hall, the patentees in England of Schonbein’s invention. The 
explosion caused far more injury to life and property, and as the immediate 
cause could not be clearly determined, it led to the manufacture being 
condemned as too dangerous to be kept up. There were four buildings in 
the factory, out of which two were in use; each was forty feet square and had 
walls eighteen feet thick; between every two there was an earthen mound 
forty feet high, and it was hoped that if an explosion happened in one it 
would do no harm to another. The precautions failed. The ruins of the 
building where the explosion occurred broke through the roof of the other 
and set fire to its contents. Buildings, trees, and corn for a wide circle 
around the spot were more or less damaged. Twenty-one persons were 
killed and sixteen were seriously hurt; some died of their injuries ; one man 
lost his life from the fumes of nitric acid gas among the ruins in which he 
was helping to extricate the victims of the explosion.t 
* Annual Register ; 1847, p. 74. 
f Ibid. p. 87. 
