Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/741

Rh both the decomposition of the saltpetre and the generation of gas, by combining with the potassium of the saltpetre and liberating the oxygen. Then, by heating the carbonic acid and nitrogen, it considerably increases their volume, and consequently their explosive force. The flash, and smoke, and the fouling of the gun, are the result of the decomposition of the saltpetre, and consist of sulphates and carbonates of potassa, resulting from the combination of potassium with the sulphur and carbon. The substances thus formed, swept out into the air, become flame and smoke, or remain in the bore of the gun as fouling, and it is these solid substances that blacken the faces of men engaged in close conflict.

Thus we see that of the materials of gunpowder saltpetre is the most important. Both saltpetre and sulphur arrive in England in a rough state, mixed with various impurities. It is generally the practice in private factories to purchase these materials after they have been refined elsewhere; but at Waltham the refining process is carried on within the works. By this means the materials are obtained of a uniform quality and perfectly pure. The saltpetre comes from various districts of India, chiefly from Bengal and Oude, where it is found mixed with the soil, and as an incrustation on the ground. In India it is boiled, and roughly crystallized by evaporation. When it is required for use in the Gunpowder Factory, it is purified by a process founded on the principle that hot water will receive in solution more of the saltpetre than of the impurities mingled with it. The saltpetre is boiled in water; the resulting solution is then filtered and allowed to cool in large vats, at the bottom of which the pure saltpetre is deposited in fine crystals. It is then washed, dried, and stored in bins, great care being taken that no sand or gritty particles are introduced, as they might cause an explosion when under pressure at subsequent stages of the manufacture, and the same precaution is taken with the sulphur and the charcoal. It is believed that many of the explosions which occur in private factories are caused by foreign substances being present in the materials.

The sulphur is all of the best quality, imported from Sicily. It is purified by a distilling process, which reduces it from its rough state to masses of handsome yellow crystals. It is then pulverized by being ground under iron runners, and sifted in a kind of revolving cylindrical sieve, called a "slope-reel." The sulphur refining-house is, of the whole factory, the least pleasant portion for a visitor, the air being always tainted with the fumes of the sulphur, which are so strong as even to burn and destroy the leaves of the trees near the building. The management of the process is, however, by no means an unhealthy labor. The workman last employed at it died as a pensioner at the ripe old age of eighty, after having worked forty years in the refining-house.

The charcoal is all made on the spot, chiefly from wood imported