Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV GUNCOTTON IN FRANCE (1846) The announcement of Schonbein's discovery aroused in the French Academy a remarkable interest. The Comptes Rendus of 1846 and 1847 contain a very large number of interesting communications on this particular subject, and it would be impossible, in a short space, to summarize them. Two communications, however, one by Dumas,1 the other by Pelouze, are of sufficient historical interest to be dealt with in detail. Schonbein wrote to Dumas as follows:—" You know, perhaps, that I have discovered a very simple method of transforming ordinary cotton into a material possessing all the necessary properties as a propellent. In addition to the superior explosive force of this curious substance, it is in every respect superior to the best powder. Experiments which I have made in mines and quarries and with cannons and mortars have shown that one pound of this substance produces effects equal to from 2 to 4 pounds of ordinary black powder. It should be added that cotton so treated does not leave any residue when exploded, and produces no smoke. The manufacture is not attended with the least danger, and does not require any costly installations. In view of these properties we cannot doubt that this explosive cotton should rapidly find a place in the pyrotechnic arts and especially on war vessels." Dumas' own communication was as follows:— " Arago having questioned meat the meeting of the Academy on 7th October 1846, on the subject of guncotton, I then stated that, although the details to hand were very meagre, I considered the subject to be one of very great importance, and that the new explosive substance would probably be found to be related to xylo'idine discovered by Braconnot and further studied by Pelouze. It appeared to me to be only right to... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.