XII. Experiments to determine the force of fired gunpowder

Abstract

No human invention of which we have any authentic records, except, perhaps, the art of printing, has produced such important changes in civil society as the invention of gunpowder. Yet, notwithstanding the uses to which this wonderful agent is applied are so extensive, and though its operations are as surprising as they are important, it seems not to have hitherto been examined with that care and perseverance which it deserves. The explosion of gunpowder is certainly one of the most surprising phænomena we are acquainted with, and I am persuaded it would much oftener have been the subject of the investigations of speculative philosophers, as well as of professional men, in this age of inquiry, were it not for the danger attending the experiments: but the force of gunpowder is so great, and its effects so sudden and so terrible, that, notwithstanding all the precautions possible, there is ever a considerable degree of danger attending the management of it, as I have more than once found to my cost. Several eminent philosophers and mathematicians, it is true, have, from time to time, employed their attention upon this curious subject; and the modern improvements in chemistry have given us a considerable insight into the cause, and the nature of the explosion which takes place in the inflammation of gunpowder; and the nature and properties of the elastic fluids generated in its combustion. But the great desideratum, the real measure of the initial expansive force of inflamed gunpowder, so far from being known, has hitherto been rather guessed at than determined; and no argument can be more convincing to show our total ignorance upon that subject, than the difference in the opinions of the greatest mathematicians of the age, who have undertaken its investigation.