Evening star., 1898-09-10
FIRST sMoKELEss POWDER.
Little Can for 1t Made for Dig Guns
Before the War.

From the St. Louis Globe Democrat.
People have heard more about smokeless
powder since the beginning of hostilities
between Spain and the United States than
they ever knew since its existence as
factor in warfare or as a source of great
satisfaction to the sportsman. Smokeless
or nitro powder Is far more extensively
manufactured in this country than one
would suppose, since the army and navy
were very short the supply necessary
to the requirements of the big guns. In
fact, very little of the smokeless powder
was used by the navy or the field batteries
of our army.
Notwithstanding the fact that foreign
manufacturers of smokeless powder were
better supplied at the time we began to
lay in supplies of it than the American
makers, there are dozens of. smokeiess
powder mills in America" says George II.
Rawlings, who has handled the nitro DOW
der ever since it was introduced for shot
guns and rifles. american makers of
smokeless powders had not paid a great
deal of attention to the manufacture of it
for use in guns of larger caliber, like the
armament of the navy or the cannon of
the land forces, but America leads the
world in the making of nitro powder for
sporting purposes.
The first attempt in this country at ex-
perimenting in the compoundirg of chem
icals for the manufacture of wood powder
was made here in st. Louis by an old Ger
man named Doldc, who at one time kent
the Sheridan House at the junction of
Franklin and Easton avenues and after
ward the road house at the old Wash
homestead. Dolde put in much of his spare
time in experimenting with smokeless pow
der, and lost several fingers in his efforts
TO solve the problem.
"On five different occasions the persist
ent old inventor went away to his impro-
VlSed laboratory, and after several hours
work would return minus a finger During
the years he laborcd to perfect the smoke
less powder he managed to have five fin
gers blown off, but he did not seem dis
couraged, and finally made a powder that
was smokeless, but it would take a torch
light procession to ignite the stuff when in
a gun or in shells. What became event
ually of Dolde and his smokeless powder
don't know, but his experiments set others
thinking.
About twenty years ago a man named
Ditmar succeeded in getting a smokeless
powder on the market, and a great deal of
it was sold to sportsmen, but it was not
bowling success at first All shells had
to be primed with black powder in order
to ignite the Ditmar quickly. The Ditmar
factory merged into the American Wood
Powder Company, and there was great i'm
prOVement in the output, both in quantity
and quality.
The Schultz powder, which was made in
Europe, found its way to this country. and
1t gave such universal satisfaction and the
demand became great that the company
came with its plant to this country. The
Schultz was very strong shooting powder
and as quick as the black article
The S. S. and some other makes of
smokeless powders have passed out of the
market, but plenty other brands took their
places. The old black powder companies
are nearly all making smokeless powder
now 1t is hard to tell which powder is the
best of the smokeless. 1t is a matter of
individual opinion to a great extent
mo up-to-date sportsman at the trap or
in the field thinks of using black powder
any more, and most all of them use the
carefully hand-loaded shells. Tons of nj
tro-powder are burr ed up every week over
the traps alone, and when the game sea-
is fairly opened the amount consumed
will be nearly ten times as great as now"