Abstract
A CIRCUMSTANCE of singular interest has recently been revealed in connection with the investigations still being carried on with gun-cotton at Woolwich Arsenal. The experiments made with this powerful explosive have now extended over a period of ten years, and although many discoveries of vital interest have been made by Professor Abel and by Mr. E. O. Brown, who is aiding in the research, the results teach us, before everything, how much more we have yet to learn of the properties of pyroxilin. First of all, the violence of its explosion had to be tamed, then a compressed form of the material was devised, and after that it was shown that, like its sister-explosive, nitro-glycerine, gun-cotton could be violently detonated, if ignited by a charge of fulminate. Gun-cotton, in fact, turns out to be sympathetic, for, according to the energy with which it is inflamed, so it responds in its behaviour: thus, if gently ignited by a spark, the cotton, in the form of yarn, smouldered slowly away; when set fire to by a flame, it burnt up rapidly; if in the form of a charge it was exploded in a mine or a fire-arm, it at once resented the shock and replied with corresponding energy, behaving like gun-powder under similar circumstances; while, lastly, if fired with great violence with a few grains of fulminate, it is detonated with as much force and with the same terrible effect as its instigator.
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The Rapidity of Detonation . Nature 8, 534 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/008534a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/008534a0