Abstract
AT the recent meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry held at Manchester, Mr. W. F. Reid is reported to have made the statement that nitrated cotton is not a high explosive, though every chemist knows that it is the typical high explosive. The fact that certain newspaper writers have differentiated between nitrated cotton and nitrated benzene or toluene, or any other coal-tar derivative, has nothing to do with the differentiation of a high explosive (which is of itself nitrated, and contains within itself sufficient oxygen to allow of its explosion) and those mechanical mixtures, such as gunpowder, which have been now superseded. A letter from Sir William Ramsay published in the Times of July 19 makes all these matters perfectly plain, and no responsible person would dispute them. I was present in the House of Lords when Lord Charn-wood brought his statement before that House, and I also heard the rest of the debate, including the answer of the Marquess of Crewe. The House, consisting of those who are necessarily laymen so far as their chemical knowledge is concerned, found some difficulty in following the arguments as to whether any substitute for cotton could be effectively used.
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BLOUNT, B. Cotton as a High Explosive . Nature 95, 591–592 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095591e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095591e0