Arizona republican., 1904-06-01
The Japanese Explosive.


 lowing with much interest the
 results which are attending the
 use of the Japanese explosiv,
 'Shimose." in the war operations in tho
 far east. Our officers, it seems. regar; l it as a powerful factor on the side oi
 Japan. and they consider that all other nations are placed at a disadvantage because the secret of it's manufacture ! is known only to the Japanese. Dis patches from the war correspondents have related that shells filled with
 "Shimose' prove far more destructive i than any other shell known. Battle ship armor is little defense against the | explosive, and in land operations thc bursting of a "Shimose" shell deals death over a large area. Naturally
 there is much curiosity to know what the explosive is made of
 The Shanghai Times gives an ac- count of a lecture delivered in Tok!o a | short time ago by pr. Shimosc. the inventor of the new explosive, in which the doctor purported to explain thu nature and use of the powder He was careful, however. to protect his secret. 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" be- lOnged to the latter category, and was never used for the purpose Of dis charging shots. The explosive used by the European powers for warlike plr- poses was guncotton. But manifold in- Conveniences attended the use Of gan cotton; for instance, when dried too much it exploded even by slight fric- tion. In order to prevent this danger it was necessary to combine it with water to the extent of 20 per cent. in which case it burned with difficulty when ignited. But when the water ex- ceeced 20 per cent. guntcotton would not explode. Again. owing to possible evaporation. the water contained in guncottoa did not maintain an equal quantity. making it's safety unstable. Sometimes it would become mouldy. thus losing most of its explosive power, which could not then be easily restored. At present the most powerful explosive in the world was blasting-ceIatine. which was used by Americans. though not for military purposes. It was far superior to guncotton in destructive power, and could be quite safely hand led in ordinary times. One defeCt. however, of gelatine was Its easy freez- ing. Frozen gelatine would explode from the slightest cause. and this fac made it Unft for military purposes The ~Shtmose" explosive was very sim ply constituted. but it was sufficiently safe to be used by the navy.
 Continuing. Dr. Shinose said neither the falling of an iron hammer upon it. nor ignition, nor the firing of a bullet into it. would cause his explosive to explode. In such cases it would burn like turpentine but the fire could be extinguisked by a cupful Of water Combined with certain ingredient. it had sufficient explosive power for war. like purposes. Among the explosives in the world the American gelatine had the greatest destructive power: Shim- ose came next gIncotton and dynamite following in order. To illustrate the cx- plosive power of Shimosc, small quantity placed upon an iron plate one pr two inches thick would, when ex. ploGed, perforate the plate for the area covered by the powder At an experiment carried out at Kugenuma. Soshu, a six-inch Shimose shot was fired at coal store protected with lrmor plate similar to that of a cer- tain cruiser. The shot made hole of about three feet in diamete-. whereas in the case of the ordinary shot the diameter of the hole was only si,. inches. It burst on contact with the plate, while tac other exploded only when it had travelled about three feet after passing through the plate Tn, Shhnose shell was blown into two or three thousand pieces, while the other broke up only into 19 or 15 fragments. This tremendous power was testified to by the fact that a bluejacket on the Variag was struck by more than 160 Fragments of shell. The placing of one such shot on a deck would mean the wounding of all the crew there. But he explosive was not intended for the l killing of men, but for the destruc-i ll | )f warships. One more noteworthy ! feature Of the Shimose powder, con- ,luded the doctor. was the fact that its | ,ost was about half that of guncotton. |
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