Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1904-08-23
NEW JAPANESE EXPLOSIVE.
Shimose Second in Its Destructive.
ness, but Handled More Easily.

ness, but Handled More Easily.
The explosive used in the Japan
csc navy bears the name of its in
ventor, DIR. Shimose. The destruc-
tive power of this explosive was
demonstrated during the recent naval
engagements A few days ago the
inventor delivered a lecture in Toxic
in which he explained the nature and
use of the powder.
The inventor said that, according
TO their use. explosives were CLASSIFIED
under two headings. namely, those
for mining and those for military
purposes, the latter being again
classified into those for discharging
and those for destructive purposes
"Shimose belonged to the latter
category, and was never used for the
purpose of discharging shots. The
explosive used by the European pow
ers for warlike purposes was gun
cotton. But manifold Inconvenience
attended the use of guncotton; for
instance when dried too much, it ex-
ploded even by slight friction.
In order to prevent this danger 1t
was necessary to combine it with
water to the extent of 20 per cent,
in which case it burned with difficult
ty when ignited. But when the water
exceeded 20 per cent. guncotton would
not explode.
Again, owing to possible evapora-
ton, the water contained in guncot-
ton did not maintain an equal guam
tity, making its safety unstable.
Sometimes it would become moldy,
thus losing most of its explosive
power, which could not then be easily
restored
At present the most powerful eX-
plosive in the world is blasting gela-
tine, which is used by Americans,
though not for military purposes. 1t
is far superior to gun cotton in de-
structive power. and could be quite
safely handled in ordinary times.
One defect, however. of gelatine is
its easy freezing. Frozen gelatlne
will explode from the slightest cause.
and this fact makes it unfit for mill
tary purposes. The "Shimose" eX-
plosiye is very simply constituted,
but it is sufficiently safe to be used
by the navy.
Continuing, DR.. Shimose said
neither the falling of an iron ham
mer upon it, nor ignition, nor the
a,,I1af inf would canSS
his explosive to explode. In such
cases it would burn like turpentine,
but the fire could be extinguished by
a cupful of water. Combined with
certain ingredient, it had sufficient
explosive power for warlike purposes.
Among the explosives in the world
the American gelatine had the great
est destructive power; Shimose came
next, guncotton and dynamite follow
ing in order. To illustrate the ex-
plosive power of Shimose, a small
! quantity placed upon an iron plate
one or two inches thick would, when
exploded, perforate the plate for the
| area covered by the powder.
At an experiment carried out at
Kugenuma, Soshu, siX-inch Shimose
shot was fired at a coal store protect
ed with armor plate similar to that
| of a certain cruiser. The shot made
a hole of about three feet in diameter.
whereas in the case of the ordinary
shot the diameter of the hole was
only six inches. 1t bursts on contact
with the plate, while the other ex-
ploded only when it had Travelled
about three feet after passing through
the plate. The Shimose shell was
blown into two or three thousand
pieces, while the other broke up only
into ten or fifteen fragments.
This tremendous power was testi-
fieI to by the fact that bluejacket
on the Variag was struck by more than
100 fragments of shell. The placing
of one such shot on deck would
mean the wounding of all the crew
there. But the explosive was not in
tended for the killing of men, but
for the destruction of warships. One
more noteworthy feature of the Shi-
NOSE powder, concluded the Doctor
was the fact that its cost was about
half that of guncotton.-Shanghai
| Times.