ROMANCE OF MODERN EXPLOSIVES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 109, 9 May 1916, Page 2

ROMANCE OF MODERN EXPLOSIVES.

To Sir Frederick Abel, then Mr Abel, was due the solution of the problem which had so persistently baffled the ecort s of his predecessors and contemporaries—that is, a process for the purification of gun-cotton. Indeed, its utility as a disruptive agent may be said to date from Sir Frederick's discovery in ISGS, a discovery by which gun-cotton is thoroughly purified, and the material converted into thoroughly compact homogeneous masses. Cordite is much more powerful than gun-cotton, and is composed of nitroglycerine, gun-cotton, and vaseline, which are dissolved by so many parts of acetone. These, says "Chambers's Journal," are mixed together until they form a soft, putty-like paste. It is then forced through holes in a metal plate, and emerges in long strings, whence its name "cordite" comes. A smokeless powder, cordite is commonly used in firing our big guns.

Lyddite is probably the most 1 powerful explosive known to man. It is largely composed of one of the derivatives of coal-tar, namely, picric acid. To convert and develop the explosive properties of this new discovery to the purposes of war was only a matter of time and , experiment for the expert chemists. They did not labour in vain, for they found that by melting the picric acid crystals until they turned into a" fluid of the consistency of cream, and then combining this fluid with glm-cottcn melted in alcohol, they got an explosive more terrifying and tremendous in its destructive powers than anythnig else known before or since.,