If it is weak stuff, it is probably insensitive,
and even if it were strong, one swallow does not make a summer. The
English fired quantities of blasting gelatine from a two-inch
Nordenfeldt gun in 1884, but when they tried it in a seven-inch gun,
in 1885, they burst the gun at once.
I have only analyzed this Austrian case, because the statement is
taken from this year's annual report of the Office of Naval
Intelligence, which is an excellent authority, and to illustrate the
fact that of the thousands of accounts, which we see in foreign and
domestic newspapers, concerning the successful use of high explosives
in shells, fully ninety per cent. are totally unreliable. In many
cases they are in the nature of a prospectus from the inventors of
explosives or methods of firing, who are aware of the fact that it is
almost impossible to dispute any statements that they may choose to
make regarding the power of their new compounds, and thinking, as most
of them do, that power alone is required.
Referring to the qualities that I have previously cited as being
required in a high explosive for military purposes, it is sooner or
later found that nearly all the novelties proposed lack some of the
essentials and soon disappear from the advertising world only to be
succeeded by others.
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