The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-28

"COrdite. This particular variety was
brought out by Sir F. Abel and Pro-
fessor Denver. Ii takes its peculiar
name from the fact that it comes from
the mixing machines in a long cordlike
formation, which is cut into suitable
lengths for use. 1t is not entirely
smokeless. In fact, there is no such
thing as "smokelessH powder. A little
vapor proportionate to the amount OF
powder is always seen floating away
after a discharge. 1t is 1,000,000 pounds
of this material which the army and
the navy board intends to purchase.
WHAT CORDITE CONSISTS OF.
Cordite falls naturally within the cat
egory Of the high explosives" Even
aside from its quality of limited smoke
lessness it recommends itself, because
of it's greatly enhanced explosive quail
ity, bulk for bulk, over the ordinary
black priSmatic powder, which has been
used heretofore. In the mere sending
of bullets, one pound of cordite will do
the work of three pounds of black
prismatic powder, and as far as the
gun is concerned with bore trif1e
over half the size. Even this estimate
may be a little too conservative, for
with the quantity, exactly as stated
above the muzzle velocity is slightly
greater with the cordite. The very ma
ture of the explosive would promise
this, however, for it is composed of SO
parts Of nitro-glycerine, 81 parts gun
cotton and parts vaseline, dissolved
by 1872 parts of acetone. The 'cordite
used in blank cartridges, however,
contains no vaseline.
THE PROCESS OF MAKING.
The process Of manufacture is a very
A 0f
nitro glycerine is poured over a given
amount of previously dried guncotton.
The two ingredients are carefully
mixed by hand, and when sufficiently
assimilated, the resulting substance is
put into a specially designed kneading
machine. Vaseline is added during the
kneading process and later the acetone
is put in. The acetone gradually pene-
trates the other three substances and
finally a tough, buff colored paste is
formed. This paste is placed in an
other machine, from a hole in the end
of which it is pushed forth by hydrau-
lie pressure in strings that look for all
the world like spaghetti. The thread
or cord" is continuous, and as it is
sues like dough from the machine it is
reeled onto a great iron drum, made
ready to receive it. After a drying pro-
cess which takes from three days to a
week, it is cut by machines into re-
quired lengths. Its consistency then is
that of hard rubber. 1t can be bent in
the hands, but will not return to its
original shape if released. If lighted
it will burn brightly, but it will go out
if blown upon smartly. 1t is COMPARE
lively hard to explode. 1t needs to be
detonated by some other explosive to
set it off. At Woolwich in 1892 brown
paper parcel containing ten cordite
cartridges was fired into from rifle
loaded with cordite. No explosion re-
suited. In spite OF this, however, a reg
mental band in India refused on oc-
casion to march past a magazine stored
with cordite on the ground that the
vibration produced by the brasses and
the drums might explode the magazine
and blow up the whole cantoment to
Kingdom come"
ITS EXPLOSIVE POSSIBILITIES
Since the constituents of cordite are
as stated in the foregoing, 100000
pounds os smokeless powder will con-
tain naturally $4,000 pounds of nitro
glycerine, 100000 pounds of gun cotton
and $4,000 pounds of vaseiine, not to
mention 1000 pounds of solvent ace
tone, which is lost practically in the
drying process. Such figures are, in
deed, stupendous. The upwards of one
half million pounds of nitro-glycerlne
seems in itself to be enough to blow up
a small world. But combined with 3IO,-
900 pounds of guncotton it could create
an earthquake powerful enough to dis
turb all the seismic instruments from
these in the United States bureau in
washington, D. c., to those in the lab
oratory of Sir John Milne on the Isle
of Wight. Not long ago a blacksmith
placed a drop of nitro glycerine on an
anvil and struck it with a hammer.
The side of the blacksmithshoo was
blown out. the man disappeared, and
where the anvil had stood was ragged
five-foot hole. One million pounds of
smokeless powder contains probably
$50, GOO, 600 drops of the kind used by
the blacksmith. Imagine some Vulcan
of Brobdingnagian proportions to have
struck the great drop with his mann
moth hammer. If the result were at
all in proportion, the earthquake Simlle
would not seem oVerdrawn.
The manner of it's performance could
be reckoned surely when certain great
explosives are reviewed. On Long
Island the explosion of 200 pounds of
dynamite produced earth waves which
we're felt five miles away. On another
occasion 10000 pounds of dynamite ex-
ploded and eight miles away the earth
waves had velocity of $500 feet
second. At this rate, the explosion of
ZOO, 600 pounds of cordite would have
an earth-wave of 5000 feet second