Abstract
IT may be of some interest at the present moment to give a brief summary of certain comparative experiments undertaken with nitro-glycerine and gun-cotton, with a view to ascertain their respective destructive nature and safety of employment as industrial or warlike agents. As it is occasionally inconvenient to employ a material of this kind in the form of a liquid, a modification of nitroglycerine, known as dynamite, and whicn is simply powdered glass or sand saturated with the explosive, was applied in the experiments; the force of the dynamite very nearly equals that of nitro-glycerine, and is of course much more readily handled than the liquid explosive itself. Nitro-glycerine or its compounds are the only agents of this nature that can compete in any way with gun-cotton, either as regards its igniting force or cost of production; and for this reason the experiments with these two materials have been watched with particular interest by military men, and have indeed formed the subject of a special report recently submitted to Government by the Committee on Explosives.
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Nitro-Glycerine and Gun-Cotton . Nature 3, 168–169 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/003168g0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/003168g0