Shotgun Powder

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tion that will exert its force readily without undue confinement, wads and shot being the only inert resistance to be overcome by the expansive gases.

EXPLOSION OF 30 GRAINS OF BLACK POWDER.

When shotgun smokeless powders are loaded into rifle bottle-neck-shaped cartridge shells, the confinement is much greater, and the resistance offered to the jacketed bullet, through the quick twist of the

rifled grooves of the small bore, certainly adds enormously to the resistance.

Powders for small bore rifles are made differently from shotgun powders, and should not be used in

EXPLOSION OF 30 GRAINS OF SMOKELESS POWDER.

discriminately, or for any other purpose than for which they are designed.

The principal advantages of smokeless powders for rifles are the increased velocity and consequently flatter trajectory given the projectile than when black powder is used; also the absence of smoke and, in some powders, the flash even in the nighttime;

Producing Smokeless Powder

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lastly, the greatly reduced recoil through the slower combustion and the lighter report than follows the use of ordinary powder.

Smokeless powder also permits of the ammunition being made of lighter weight. The illustration on page 643 shows the explosion of thirty grains of black powder.

The cut on page 644 illustrates the burning of an equal amount of sınokeless powder.

The basis of smokeless powder is principally a vegetable substance. Some manufacturers use straw, others wood, cotton waste, and other substances of this character. Some of the processes are kept secret as to details and proportions. The vegetable substances are acted upon by nitric acid until they become nitro-cellulose. It requires considerable experience to attain this result in a perfect manner. The cotton waste or other vegetable substance has to be cleaned from all impurities, not simply mechanically washed, but chemically purified, and this in itself requires very careful and long manipulation. When the washing process is perfected the substance must be dried absolutely and thoroughly; the washed substance must be kept in a condition of dryness until it is placed in the acid bath.

After receiving its proper proportion of acid, it is squeezed and placed in stoneware pots for a certain period, until it becomes known as "nitrated," after which it is washed again and neutralized, being treated with other chemicals, and still again washed until it appears as the finished nitro-powder ready to be canned and shipped.

To produce a successful nitro smokeless powder, it is necessary that the grain be hard, so that it can resist atmospheric changes; at the same time it must be sensitive to the heat and flame of the primer. One of the points to be attained is to get the highest possible velocity with the least possible pressure, and it must be as stable as it is possible to make it, and always give the same results, whatever the weather, temperature, or other atmospheric conditions may be to which it is subjected.

There are several manufacturers of high-grade smokeless powders in this country, one of them being the well-known E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., of Wilmington, Del., to whom the writer is indebted for many of the technical facts in this article.

Our brave boys in blue are now testing their smokeless-powder rifles in the distant Philippines, and incidentally dodging Aguinaldo's Mauser bullets that make queer buzzing sounds which resemble the song of flying insects on a hot summer's day; just as those same Kansas boys, not so very long ago, used to listen to when they had to sit drowsily still in the little country schoolhouse on the hill; but the song has a different meaning now.

Philip J. Wickser, Buffalo, N. Y., wrote:

Please tell me the names of all the ships fit for fighting that Admiral Dewey has in the Philippine Islands or that are on their way there. Also state the class of the ship. I enjoy your paper very much. I take three papers a week, and like THE GREAT ROUND WORLD the best. Please send me a premium catalogue,

Ships on the Asiatic Station

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The ships that are on our Asiatic Station that are fit for fighting, and their class, are as follows:

RESULTS OF INTEMPERANCE-LIMES AND LIME JUICEABSENCE OF WATER-COFFEE GROWING.

IN the golden days when sugar was king, planters did not appreciate native talent. As a result there

was but little available. Therefore artisans had to be brought from Merrie England. With chisel and brush they adorned imposing buildings now fallen into decay. Often this importing of costly talent meant finan

* Formerly owned by Spain, but captured and owned by the United States.