The Delta independent., 1915-02-26
What Our Nice, Cheap Cotton Can Do

surely as peaceful product of the
fields as one could imagine.
But behind every poor infantry
man that stumbles and falls and then
lies motionless on stricken field.
behind every whistling shell that sails
through the air to wreck homes and
carry ruin into cities, lies our harm
less cotton.
1t drives the bullets from the muz-
zles of the German Mausers and the
Nagants. 1t lifts the huge shells
from the short barrels of the spuatty
mortars and it caves in the steel sides
of unsuspecting battleships.
Steep a hank of our pretty white
cotton in a mixture of nitric and sui
phuric acid, and instead of cotton
although it still looks the same
there is an explosive of most fright
full power. Bury it for years, saok 1t
in water, do anything you like with it
but set fire to its fiber or give it
heavy jar and still it holds it's fright
full energy. The stronger the nitric
acid, the more uncomfortable the re-
sulting guncotton, and the more rend-
ing and wreckinf it's explosion.
Make the acid weak, and the re-
sulting cotton is a useful commercial
product-collodion or perhaps cellu-
loid. So little is the difference be-
tween celluloid and the stuff that has
already sent many splendid British
ship to the bottom of the sea, that
only the chemist can explain it clear
ly. Not that celluloid is dangerous;
it is not, not a tenth as dangerous as
gasoline, not half so dangerous as
the kerosene can in the hands of the
fool But even celluloid can explode
when heated to the right degree.
Practically all smokeless powders
are made of cotton, treated with nit
ric and sulphuric acid. The latter,
by the way. merely takes up water
that the nitration process throws off,
and has no bearing on the process
itself. The Germans use practically
a pure guncotton, treated with de
terrents' to slow down its rate of
Burning, in their infantry rifles and
big guns. The sole difference be-
tween the 'propellant" that burns
and develops gas at reasonable rate
and urges the bullet out of the gun
and the stuff that detonates and
wrecks the sides of the stoutest bat
tieship is a slight change in the
chemical process of it's manufacture.
and the addition of a deterrent to
is needed in the gun itself is pow
der that will work, not wreck, that
will evolve gas comparatively slowly
and push out the bullet or shell with
out harming the gun barrel. In the
shells and in the torpedoes and in the
hand-grenades, thrown by infantry,
the opposite is true. There detona-
tion, instant explosion with rending
and wrecking of everything around it,
is asked for, and planned for by those
making the explosives.
Cotton takes care of both needs
When dynamite is used to rip out a
yard or so of hard rock, it is dentonat-
ed, exploded by shock, which in turn
comes from the firing of an immense
ly powerful cap filled with illuminate.
Such an explosion even on a small
scale, would be useless, If not fatal
in the gun barrel, because it does not
work slowly; it wrecks. The shell,
drive bullets and shells out of big
guns, would be useless. because it
would not be blown instantly to frag-
ments but would be burst without ter
rifle explosion when the powder final.
ly generated enough gas.
British cordite, the propellant used
in the big guns. and in the Lee-En.
fields carried by the infantry, is made
of the mixture of guncotton and nitro
glycerine in the proportion of 65 and
80 per cent, respectively. The miss
ing parts in the hundred is compos
ed of vaseline, used to slow down the
rate of burning and render the rate
of burning less violent in its effects
Cordite is sensitive to heat, and wher
1t is exposed even to the high TEN
perature of Africa or India it becomes
sensitive to shock, and is likely t.
catch fire spontaneously. To this eff
feet the British charge the loss o.
their battleship, the "Bulwark," the
magazines of which were full of cor
dite.
To keep the flame of the primer