HIGH EXPLOSIVES AT A LECTURE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 233, 26 June 1919, Page 3

HIGH EXPLOSIVES AT A LECTURE

AN ALARMED" AUDIENCE.

A series of explosions occurred at Burlington House, Piccadilly, recently. The occasion was a lecture and demonstration on modern explosives to the Society of Engineers by Professor .J. Young, of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Professor Young kept his listeners in a constant state of apprehension. Ho stood eurrounded by instantaneous iuse, detonators of tremendous disruptive force, and specimens of high explosives of varying shattering power. Hβ touched off gun-cotton and dynamite, and, with a hammer and anvil, experimented with Masting gelatine, which he described asbeing at the head of all explosives in disruptive force, until the building echoed with a series of deafening reports.

Explosives, explained Professor Young, were a form of concentrated energy, and tlwy were all right as long as they were not ill-treated. Somo folka had brainwaves, and wondered why this concentrated energy could not be used to drive nti ..aeroplane engine. As a mutter of fact, a pint of petrol liberated about four times as much energy as a'pint of nitroglycerine, which was the hi'ghest oxplofiivb known. The only difference was that petrol liberated its energy slowly, while nitro-glycerine did it in the fraction of a second. A modern gun was nothing but an inefficient gas engine, which made only one stroke at a firno, and the shell was merely the piston.

Fulminato of mercury was tho last word in tho way of detonators. "It is very diVugorous to handle," said Professor Young, and proimifly proceeded to ham. mer some on ffie anvil and created a deafening uproar.