Gunpowder

an intimate mechanical mixture of pota ium nitrate a. sulphur and charcoal, which lo not act on each other at the ordinary temperature, but when heated together arrange themselves into new forms evolving a we, large amount of highly heated gas. hese three ingredients may be mixed in greatly varying proportions, each being explosive. Experience has shown the following mixture to be of the best proportions: Saltpeter 75 parts, charcoal 15 parts, and sulphur 10 parts. According to Sir George Staunton gunpowder has been known in China and in India from a remote period of antiquity as an agent for blasting rocks. The statement, however, is doubtful. In Europe, Roger Bacon al. luded to it in his work “Of the Nullity of Magic,” about a. p. 1267. A German monk, Schwartz, about 1336 is said to have discovered the method of its manufacture. | The words “ smokele ” and “ noisele ” as applied to powder, are used in a comparative sense, as there is some smoke and some noise in nearly all these powders. It has been said that the report of a single Lebel rifle cannot be heard at a distance of more than 20 or 30 yards, that it may be said to make no smoke, and that the recoil is of no consequence. At 300 yards’ range not a sound is heard when a volley is fired with it, and only a faint haze arises, which is almost imperceptible, while a shower of bullets is seen to fall on the targets, an effect produced seemingly without a cause, Gunpowder Plot, a plot formed in England about a. p. 1604 by Robert Catesby, various Roman Catholics of rank, goaded into excitement by the penal laws directed against their faith and its profe ors, joining as accom- — Their aim was to blow up the ouses of Parliament by gunpowder Noy. 5, 1605, and destroy king, lords, and commons by one blow. An anonymous letter of mysterious warning, sent to Lord Mon teagle, having led to the discovery of the plot, various conspirators were executed Jan. 30 and 31, 1606, and one May 3 following. Among those put to death was Guy Fawkes, who had heen caught in the vault below the House of Lords with matches and touchwood on his goraen ready to fire the train. Since 1605 all ome connected with the Houses of rds and Commons where explosives could be stowed away are annually searched at the opening of Parliament.