COCOA FOR SHELLS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2714, 8 March 1916, Page 8

COCOA FOR SHELLS

4 FAT THAT MEANS HIGH EX- - PLOSIVES. v Every ounce cocoa, every ounce of linseed oil, lard, unsaponified fats in soap, bogus _ sardine packages whicli contain oil instead of fisli, is potentially gunpowder of a most dangerous kind. Tlie German chemists, who are very adept in the matter, can from cocoa extract approximately 50 1 per cent, of fat, and from this fat, and also from linseed oil, lard, olive oil, or any other fatty oil, can be extracted 10 per cent, of glycerine, and from this glycerine can be manufactured uitro-slycerine. Every 100 tons of fat will yield 10 tons of glycerine, which in its turn will yield 25 tons of nitroglycerine ; in short, 200 tons of cocoa will yield 25 tons of - nitro-glycerine. Every ton of fat or two tons of cocoa (which seems to bo accounted as of no munition value by the Government) will give the necssar.v power to fire 280 3in. gas, shrapnel, or high-explosive shells when combined with nitro-cotton in the correct proportions,—"Daily Mail."