Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-07-01
USEFUL GUNC OTTON.
Articles of Indispensable Commerce
Made From Deadly Explosive.


decade ago the United States steam
ship Maine was destroyed, hundreds of
lives lost and war precipitated by the
explosion of few pounds of guncot-
ton; that still more recently hundreds
and thousands of human beings at a
time were hurled to eternity by the
judicious scattering about of a little
guncotton here and there; that the ty-
rant of unhappy Russia trembles and
pales at the mere mentioning of this
terrific avenger, it is hard to realize
that perhaps you are reclining on a
divan covered by guncotton in the
form Of artificial silk, biting on a pipe
stem composed of guncotton and cas-
tor oil, and drawing funny pictures on
a tablet of guncotton and camphor,
while talking to the young lady who is
kicking her high French heels, covered
by guncotton in the form of artificial
leather, against the chair, highly pol
ished by a guncotton varnsh and
nervously lingering a hair comb which
contains sufficient guncotton to oblit-
crate the room you are in; that you
can take 100 times as much guncotton
as it would take to send the dreaded
Dreadnought with every soul on board
to the bottom of the sea and pulp it
to a state resembling the finest flour
guncotton in the films of the little ko-
dak you carry around so carelessly to
blow yourself to atoms.
Suppose you take a pinch Of gun
cotton and put it in a glass, then pour
alcohol over tit remains just as it
was. You repeat the experiment with
ether in place of alcohol-the same re-
suit You then mix ether and alcohol
in third glass, and chemical analysis
as well as physical examination will
tell you that no change has taken
place. They are simply there as ether
and alcohol and nothing else. Now
you take this mixture and pour it over
your guncotton. 1t swells out imme-
diately and in a few minutes the cot
tonlike fibers are transformed into a
clear, transparent jelly; you add a lit
tie more of the magic mixture and in
shorter time than it takes to stir the
guncotton around you have as clear
and transparent a liquid as If salt or
sugar had been dissolved in distilled
water.
1t is still in that solution as gum
cotton pure and simple, and if you let
the mixture evaporate and dry the
guncotton, you can explode it as well
as If it had never been dissolved. In
stead of letting the mixture evaporate,
however, you add little of that castor
oil you could not induce your little
child to take the other day on account
Of it's "nastiness," and you have chang
ed the whole nature of the formidable
explosive.
Now, if you draw off the ether al
cohol you have a jelly-'ike mass, which
you cannot explode, if you fired it with
detonation cap, hammered 1t with a
sledge hammer or threw it in the
kitchen fire.
1t is this remarkable property "
guncotton to be easily soluble in ether
alcohol or similar solvent and to be
rendered non-eXplosive by the addition
of such a substance as castor oil or
champion, which renders it so ex-
tremely serviceable in the arts and in
dustries
The parents Of guncotton are, in
deed, of an innocent nature and hum
BILE origin. You take old rags, wood
pulp, paper, or, better still, cotton
that is where it got it's name-and treat
it with nitric acid. There is your gum
cotton.
Now it Is taken in the dryhouses and
you handle it with trembling care.
Carefully, tenderly, cautiously it is
removed from the dryhouses to the dis
solving vats, where it is damped in the
waiting alcohol. You draw sigh of
relief, for you can begin to handle it
with comparative safety again.
If you now put in only the necessary
ether you would have an elegant
smokeless powder-far superior in
strength, safety, effectiveness and
cleanliness to the old fashioned ammu-
milton. But that is not what you are
after, so you add little caster oil or
perhaps a solution of camphor-and
now you can begin to handle it reck-
lessly. You decide to turn that parti-
cular batch of the explosive into cellu-
loid and you treat it accordingly.
You might make the celluloid as
hard as rock or as flexible as vulcan
lied rubber, you might make it to re-
semble ivory, amber, tortoise shell,
horn, different kinds of wood or al
most any other solid you can think of,
you can make it as white as snow, as
black as ebony or as variegated as the
rainbow, you can easily turn it or cast
it or mold it into any conceivable
shape-no wonder, then, that it has
such an unlimited practical application
in daily life.
You make up your mind for what
particular purpose you want the batch
in the mixer, and you vary the ingredi-
ents you put in accordingly. If you
want it colored in any way you put in
the appropriate dye stuffs, if you want
it clear, amberlike and transparent you
put nothing but your oil in it.
After a while your guncotton mixture
resembles a tough, elastic, coherent
dough and you take it out Of the ma
chine, press it through dies and roll 1t
between heated rollers in order to still
more incorporate the ingredients and
to drive off the solvent, which now has
become quite superhuous.
If you want very hard product
such as is used for piano keys, billiard
balls, knife handles, penholders, collar
buttons or the like, you mix in but very
little of your oil, and after the original
solvent is entirely driven off, you have
strong, hornlike substance, which
you can turn or cut, as you please, and
which can be polished to radiance.
If you had in mind To cast or mold
beautiful toilet boxes, cigar cases, ma