THE GENTLE HIGH EXPLOSIVE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 144, 11 February 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE GENTLE HIGH EXPLOSIVE.

In his experiments w'th gun-cotton, the great chemical expert, Sir Frederick Abel, not infrequently took his life in his hands. Tlie story goes that, apparently in the most cheerful mood. Sir Frederick bade lis wife good-bye one morning and set off. He had been commanded by the War Office authorities to make some experiments with gun-cotton. It was dangerous stuff. None knew this better than the main whose business it was to experiment with explosives. The quest on that occurred to him was :—" When I take the cover off the iron boiler in which I placed the gun-cotton with the acids I poured on it yesterday, shall ! be blown to pines 1'" There was only one way of solving the problem— by lift'ng the (over. He lifted it, to discover that Irs experiment hr.d been a hug< success.

With Profes.-or Dewar he spent months in seeking how to render c< dite safe to handle. Sir Frederick an the professor 3 hav'ng urrounded themselves with it, began to experiment. When some of the head officials visited the laboratory to hear Abel's observations on it, he nearly startled them out of their wits by thrusting the lighted end of a cigar into a lump big enough to send the whole pn.rty heavenward, "just to show you that we have made no mistake, gentlemen," he remarked.

Cordite is much more powerful than gun-cotton, and is composed of nitroglycerine, gun-cotton, and vaseline, which ;:ie dissolved by so many parts of acetone. These are mixed together until they form a soft, putty-Ike paste. It is then forced through holes in a metal p'ate. and emerges in long strings, whence its name "cordite" comes.

A smokeless powder, cordite is commonly used in firing our big guns. How the huge shells, weighng in some cases nearly a ton, are thrown u;»tances varying from seven to twenty odd miles is one of the marvels of modern munition-. The shell, which is filled with a high explosive, is loaded ltuu the gun. and behind it I- p'aced a leg charge of cordite. 'Hie breech of the gun is then locked, the cordite '- exploded, and the power generated by the explosion thrusts the shell .jiiu from the gun at terriffic speed to its mark. Tlie shell itself is tilled with lyddite —so called because it was first tested at Lydd. a litt'e place ii Kent where many of our ''lads in khaki" have been trained in the art of marksmanship. —"Chambers's Journal'' for November.