substance as camphor, which is used to reduce the sensitiveness of the
explosive. Other nitro bodies that are used, or have been proposed, are
nitro-starch, nitro-jute, nitrated paper, nitro-benzene, di-nitro-benzene,
mixed with a large number of other chemical substances, such as nitrates,
chlorates, &c. And lastly, there are the picrate powders, consisting of
picric acid, either alone or mixed with other substances.

The various smokeless powders may be roughly divided into military and
sporting powders. But this classification is very rough; because although
some of the better known purely military powders are not suited for use in
sporting guns, nearly all the manufacturers of sporting powders also
manufacture a special variety of their particular explosive, fitted for
use in modern rifles or machine guns, and occasionally, it is claimed, for
big guns also.

Of the purely military powders, the best known are cordite, ballistite,
and the French B.N. powder, the German smokeless (which contains nitro-
glycerine and nitro-cotton); and among the general powders, two varieties
of which are manufactured either for rifles or sporting guns, Schultze's,
the E.C. Powders, Walsrode powder, cannonite, Cooppal powder, amberite,
&c., &c.

~Cordite~, the smokeless powder adopted by the British Government, is the
patent of the late Sir F.A. Abel and Sir James Dewar, and is somewhat
similar to blasting gelatine. It is chiefly manufactured at the Royal
Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey, but also at two or three private
factories, including those of the National Explosives Company Limited, the
New Explosives Company Limited, the Cotton-Powder Company Limited, Messrs
Kynock's, &c. As first manufactured it consisted of gun-cotton 37 per
cent., nitro-glycerine 58 per cent., and vaseline 5 per cent., but the
modified cordite now made consists of 65 per cent. gun-cotton, 30 per
cent. of nitro-glycerine, and 5 per cent. of vaseline. The gun-cotton used
is composed chiefly of the hexa-nitrate,[A] which is not soluble in nitro-
glycerine. It is therefore necessary to use some solvent such as acetone,
in order to form the jelly with nitro-glycerine. The process of
manufacture of cordite is very similar, as far as the chemical part of the
process is concerned, to that of blasting gelatine, with the exception
that some solvent for the gun-cotton, other than nitro-glycerine has to be
used. Both the nitro-glycerine and the gun-cotton employed m