Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1892 — PROPERTIES OF MELINITE. [ARTICLE]

PROPERTIES OF MELINITE.

One of the most extraordinary of new inventions in warfare is the French explosive called “melinite,” which is not only effective for rending and destroying when turown in a bomb, but also serves a purpose similar to that of the “stinkpots” of long ago. These latter, supposed to have been originated by the Saracens during the middle ages, were utilized as Into ns the Inst century by the British, French, and Spanish. Smashed among the enemy they set free volumes of poisonous and asphyxiating gases. Melinite is only three times as powerful ns guupowder, but it has the groat advantage of beiug entirely safe to handle. Its base is a cord tar product termed picric acid, and it has about the consistency of molasses, being poured into shells and hardening. The fumes liberated by the bursting of one. of these bombs are most deadly. Not long ago, for the purposo of experiment, a single one was fired at a vessel on tho deck of which had been placed a number of sheep and goats. All of the animals not killed by the fragments of the exploded shell were suffocated to death. One day a French workman, diggiug out of the ground a melinite bomb that had been fired three days before, was so far overcome by the gases which it still exhaled as to be with difficulty restored. The object of civilized warfare being hot to kill, but to disable or capture the adversary, it has been suggested that shells, instead of being loaded with destructive and deadly explosives, should Ikj filled with powerful though harmless drugs, which, on bursting, would spread a Bleepproducing vapor. Thus an entire ship’s company migiit Ik? plunged into involuntary slumber by a single bomb, and in like manner whole regiments and brigades could be forced to resign themselves to sudden and hclplesH repose, to he revived later by their humane captors. The somniferous gas ought to have nearly as possible the same specific gravity us the atmosphere, so as to he dispersed in the latter and hang in a cloud about the enemy, neither rising in the air nor falling to the ground.