Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-08-11
LIABLE TO EXPLODE.
HARMLESS HOUSEHOLD GOODS THAT
ARE REALLY DANGEROUS.

Sugar and Chlorate of Potash IL .
wicked Combination, and Flour
Dust and Dry Air Is Fraught with
kDanger-odaitieso of Guncotten.
At the premises of an English COM
parry there occurred some time ago
disastrous fire which completely Quilted
an enormous building gnd caused losses
aggregating 100000. The fire was at
tributed to an explosion of malt.
ANY fine ip1ammable dust when
mixed with certain proportion of dry
air will explode. There was previous
similar accident in New York candy
mandatory. A terrific explosion
which wrecked the entire building was
discovered to be due to the fact that
particles of fine icing sugar had been
allowed to invade the room where the
furnaces were.
An eminent authority on explosives
declares that many of those accidents
in coal mines usually attributed to fire
damp have been caused by dry coal
dust suspended in the galleries having
been accidentally fired. Even so appar-
emily as innocent substance as flour
becomes fearfully explosive when
mixed in suitable proportions with dry
air.
Another substance that has proved to
be extremely dangerous when stored in
large quantities is chlorate of potash.
A disaster some years ago in big Lon
don factory proved the destructive
powers of this simple remedy for colds.
/ Sugar and chlorate of potash mixed
form an explosive which has been tried
for blasting purposes, but so dangerous
a compound is it that any explosive
containing these ingredients is not like
ly to pass the government tests in this
country.
A good many years ago it was dis
covered that cellulose soaked in strong
nitric acid changed from substance
no more harmful than paper to fierce
explosive The number of materials on
which nitric acid will work similar
transformation is almost endless.
Wood, paper, straw. coal, peat, pitch,
starch, sugar, tea tan, phosphorus, iron,
zinc, copper and magnesium are only
few that could be named.
One of the best known and most ter
rible of these mixtures is nitroglycerin,
which is simply nitric acid and COM
mon glycerin mixed together and al
lowed to fall into a stream of water.
Dynamite is nothing more than nitro
glycerin absorbed by some spongy sub
stance. Alum, asbestus, plaster OF par
is, sawdust, bran, meal even dried and
pounded potatoes. have been employed
for. this purpose, but the substance
most commonly employed is what is
known as "kiesel guhr.' or spongy
earth This is the kind of clay formed
of minute fossil shells. great beds of
which are found in Germany and 9th
er parts of the world.
Guncotton, which was first made In
1916, is the form of nitro compound
usually employed in war. 1t is manu-
featured from ordinary cotton waste
treated with mixture of nitric and
sulphuric acids.
There is one very curious point about
guncotton. 1t cannot be made from
raw cotton in the bale; waste cotton is
necessary for its manufacture. 1t seems
as if the bleaching to which manufac-
tured cotton has been subjected has
something to do with fitting the waste
for becoming explosive material. Oily
waste is, however, completely useless
for making guncotton, and if even a
little is carelessly used a whole batch
of the manufactured product may be
spoiled.
Guncotton is so extraordinarily sud
den in its action that a small quantity
has been exploded in contact with a
heap of gunpowder and has failed to
set fire to It,
The great advantage which guncot-
ton possesses over all other explosives
is that damp does not injure it In
fact. wet guncotton eXplodes with just
as great violence as dry, but is of
course much harder to fire. Conse-
quently it is one of the safest explo-
sives to carry, as it can be thoroughly
wetted before packing and kept wet
during transport. For mining purposes
or for use in war guncotton is usually
compressed into hard cakes.
The cordite which is now used in
British military rifles is rather more
compound substance, being composed
of thirty-seven parts of guncotton
mixed with fifty-eight of nitroglycerin
and FIVE parts of mineral jelly. 1t Is
formed into little cords each three
eighths of an inch in diameter. These
are made up into little fagots which
are placed in the cartridges.
What seems very odd substance
from which to make an explosive Is
gutta percha. But by the action OF nj
trio acid it can be turned into formi-
dable detonator.
Each country has its pet powder. The
United States uses picrate of ammonia;
the French have a beautiful, semi
transparent, chestnut colOred powder
made of the mira ties of potassium and
barium. Besides these there are dozens
of explosives with fancy names such
as ballistite, cannonite, rifleite, randite,
plastomenite. These vary in size and
shape of grain. color and power, but
they all depend on the action of nitric
acid for their explosive force.-Atlaata