INVENTOR OF "TURPINITE."

Taihape Daily Times, 22 May 1919, Page 5

INVENTOR OF "TURPINITE."

WAR STORIES RECALLED

The Paris .Matin reports that M. Turpin, the inventor of melinite, lias addressed a demaut for compensation to the authorities on the ground that he has been deprived of his inventions on various pretexts.

M. Turpin is the inventor also of the explosive "turpinite," regarding the alleged effects of which some of (he most wonderful stories of the war were told in the early days of 1914. The British people were vastly cheered in those dark hours to read of whole battalions of German infantry being found dead in their trenches, standing bolt upright, and still holding their rifles in firing attitude, as though suddenly petrified."

There were many scoffers —the same class of sceptics who refused to believe the authentic stories-of the thousands of Russian who pased through Britain ecretly at dead of night—but it did ether people good : nevertheless, to read .about *'turpinit i e'/si > ' isupposdd exnloits.

M", Turpin. it is said, has long considered that he has not been justly treated in connection with the discovery of melinite and lyddite, and the. story goes that he became resentful, and set to work, to discover some new explosive ecvn more terrible than these substances. Hence "turpinite."