Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from On Recent Investigations Applications of Explosive Agents: A Lecture Delivered to the Members of the British Association at Edinburgh, August 1871
The principles laid down by the first Committee on Gunpowder, in 1 858, as their guide in attempting to reduce the violence of action of powder when fired m large charges, have been, up to the present time, adhered to by those since entrusted with the continuance of these investigations. Before specifying them it may be instructive to glance brie?y at some ways in which gunpowder may readily be modified, with the object of increasing or diminishing the rapidity and violence of its explosion, and at the reasons why they have not hitherto been selected.
As gunpowder is simply an intimate mechanical mixture of a powerful oxidising agent - saltpetre or potassium-nitrate, with two readily-oxidisable substances, sulphur and carbon or charcoal - it is obvious that the behaviour of this mixture, i. E. The rapidity with which it will explode, and the nature of the results furnished by its explosion, are susceptible of great modification by variations in the proportions of its ingredients.
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