MODERN EXPLOSIVES

Southland Times, Issue 17764, 24 September 1914, Page 7

MODERN EXPLOSIVES

PROFESSOR DIXON’S OPINIONS,

Professor H. B. Dixon. F.K.S.. Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Chemical Laboratories at the. Manchester University, who is at present in Christchurch, chatted interestingly to a representative of the Christchurch Press on the subject of explosives and explosions, on which he is an acknowledged authority. Spealting of the explosives which are being used in the present war. Professor Dixon indicated that the mystery with which all the governments surrounded their propellants and explosive substances was really hardly necessary, because nil these death-dealers were very much the same in their composition. The British propellant for small arms and cannon was the well-known cordite, which was merely gun-cotton dissolved in nitro-glycerine, with a small propor--1 ion of vaseline added, this being to afford a certain amount of protection to the bore of the weapon. The propellant used by the French and German armies was to' all intents and purposes the same compound, but in some cases different quantities of certain substances were added to promote combustion or increase the stability and safety, of tho compound. Tlic shell explosives, such as lyddite and melinite, used respectively by the British and French forces, was picric acid melted and poured into the shells. Tile German explosive was also of a somewhat similar nature, though in this there was a slight change in the composition which made the compound hard to explode, and therefore tended to increase its safeness and stability. Another explosive of probably similar character was the Japanese Shimose powder. Professor Dixon was amused at the lurid tales of the marvellous French explosive invented by M. Turpin, which killed so extentively and “left the bodies covered with a reddish powder and standing upright." This ho characterised as a sheer llight of fancy. “There is a M. Turpin.” he said, "and he invented melinite,” which was used by the French Government, but the stories mentioned were also, if you remember, circulated with regard to the use of lyddite in the Boer war, and with as much truth. The explosion of a lyddite or melinite shell would undoubtedly leave yellowish stains on rocks or on corpses, but only because probably some of the unburnt picric acid got splashed about, picric acid having a yellowish or greenish colour.** Professor "Dixon said that XI. Turpin had had considerable friction with the French Government to which he had offered his explosives, and in the end the Government had just taken the explos.vc and used it, whereupon .M. Turpin had written a pamphlet setting forth his woes.