The Savannah morning news., 1903-07-19

CONTRADICTIONS OF LYDDITE.
Though Apparently Harmless the
Acid Caused Havoc in England.
From the Pan Mani Gazette


Acid Caused Havoc in England.
From the Pan Mall Gazette.
One of the first reflections in connec-
ton with the terrible explosion at
Woolwich Arsenal, England, is that
the imperative necessity of arriving at
definite and satisfactory conclusion
as to the cause of the disaster is only
matched by the apparently insupera-
bic difficulties which obtrude them
selves. II we are to ask men to ham
die these high explosives, or if they
are to do SO with any degree of con-
hdence, every element of uncertainty
as to their nature and potentialities
must be entirely eradicated. At
present the evidence at our disposal,
in the absence of any living witness,
is of very contradictory nature. on
the one hand we are confronted with
the explosion of material without the
apparent presence of any cause which
our knowledge of the explosive in
question can consider sufficient. On
the other is the well-founded belief in
it's absolutely harmless character UNI
less subjected to the action of a de-
tonator.
Only the other day, at the house of
a well-known authority on ballistics, 1
was given piece of lyddite to exam
Inc. 1t had the appearance of a lump
of granulated glue, and my friend, as
evidence of its innocuous nature,
placed piece on a saucer upon the ta-
bic before US and set fire to It, 1t
simply burned and spluttered Yet it
is this same compound of picric acid
which, apparently without any recog-
nized cause, has spread death and de-
struction at Woolwich Arsenal. And
then again, on the scene of the disaster
itself, which seems evidence enough of
the perilous nature of the agent of so
much havoc, is plenty of proof of the
safety of the explosive under any but
well recognized conditions. For tossed
about here and there by the forces
which had been let loose are numbers
of great shells of a precisely similar
character to those that exploded. One
has been subjected to a test which
might in all conscience have been ex-
pected to supply all the decorating
power required. II has had a large
hole smashed in it's side by a flying
charge in it's interior. And yet it did
not explode. There could hardly be
any more convincing proof of the safe
character of the explosive than its tri-
umphant survival of such a test as
this.
We are met, therefore, by apparent
contradictions when we seek to probe
the mystery, and the most asslduous
care and research will be necessary to
arrive at a really satisfactory solution.
IT may be even that fresh tests win
have TO he devised in order to discover
the possible existence of hitherto I'M
suspected vulnerability of lyddite un-
der some rare and special conditions.
We only know that the explosion
To11 in no OH N1aeag.
as was first supposed, but among, q
number of already completed projec-
tiles. These had been filled on We'd
nesday and had been left to cool until
Thursday morning, when, in the ordi-
nary course. they would be removed
to magazine. They were probably
being taken away when the explosion
occurred and the first point suggested
for investigation is why, and in what
essential qualities, the charges of GER
tain of these shells should have so diff
fered from their replicas that six or
seven should have exploded as they
would have done when subjected in
the ordinary way to the action of a
decorating fuse. while the rest, allied
in precisely the same way with the
molten lyddite, could with absolute
impunity he hurled about, and even
broken, by the terrific force of the
explosion in their immediate vicinity.
NJ - problem tndC may well TAX
90 the utmost the wits and ingenuity
q the Royal Arsenal staff, splendidly
capable though it is. But in the vital
interests of those who have to use
the completed article, as well as of
those who are called upon to manufac-
ture the lyddites hell, the solution must
be discovered.
The vast power of the explosive is
terribly advertised by the scene of abo-
lition, rather than destruction, which
now exists upon the site of the late
buildings. Everything of a lighter ma
ture, both wood and metal, has been
desiecated and pulverized in most
singular manner, the copper pans used
in the building being reduced to a sort
of lace work. Even the birds around
were all killed, and their dead bodies
are lying here and there among the
debris.
Again, some notion may be formed of
a force we have concealed in the lyd-
dite shell from what has sometimes
Happened when 1t has been fred in the