MODERN EXPLOSIVES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1285, 15 August 1914, Page 4

MODERN EXPLOSIVES.

Till about forty-eight years ago gunpowder remained the greatest force that man could safely use. More powerful explosives had been discovered, but they were not used owing to the danger incurred by handling them. lu 1866 the Swedish chemist, Nobel, mixed nitre-glycerine oil with a porous earth, producing a material resembling sawdust in appearance. This substance he called dynamite. In the ordinary way, dynamite may be kicked about and set alight, or even fired from a gun, without exploding. But by using a small quantity of fulminate of mercury, expanded suddenly in a gaseous form, a pressure of more than half a million pounds to the square inch is produced. The explosive wave set up is too strong to be resisted even by the dynamite, the gases of which expand with a smashing force. Purely by accident Nobel descovered a still more powerful explosive, half as strong again as dynamite, which he termed gelatine. This is a mixture of guncotton and nitro-glycerine, and this mixture, under the name of cordite, is used in practically all modern guns. Cordite looks something like a cord of guttapercha, varying in colour from light to dark brown, and is slightly elastic. This compound has revolutionised the science of warfare on land and sea. When fired, it produces comparatively little smoke to cloud the scene of battle, and yet it can drive bullets to a distance undreamt of by riflemen of 50 years ago, and can discharge a broadside of several tons of steel to a distance of over twenty miles. More terrible still than the cordite used,in our guns and firearms is the picric acid explosive that is employed to burst the shells sent from our great guns. But picric acid preparations have far too smashing an effect to serve as propellant explosives. They shatter any gun, but they can be placed inside a shell fired by a tremendous charge of cordite, and they will not explode until the shell strikes home, with devastating effect. ’Vet picric acid was for years employed solely as a yellow dye. No thought was given to its terrifically destructive properties uutil its latent powers were revealed by a disastrous explosion in a dyeing factory.