Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1915 — Why Europe Needs Cotton. [ARTICLE]

Why Europe Needs Cotton.

There is no bullet or shell propelled in modern warfare unless there is a supply of cotton for the explosive which sends it from the gun.

It is the big guns that eat up guncotton. For instance, a twelve-inch gun uses up 300 pounds of guncotton every time it is fired. That is as much as is employed in the firing of 42,000 shots from the ordinary rifle. It is equal to the amount that would be used in the firing of a field gun 150 times.

Guncotton is also burned at a greSt rate in any conflict between battleships. A single battleship can use from 5,000 to 6,000 pounds a minute, or from 10 to 12 bales of cotton a minute, in firing all its guns. Ih fact, it has been calculated during this war that every innocent shipload of American cotton crossing the Atlantic to Germany is the cause - of killing or wounding 500 of our men, - .

Another estimate shows that every 100 yards of trenches require for their defense 25,000 rounds of smallammunition. Now, assume’ that the lines of trenches along both fronts in the present war in the east and west should cover 500 or 600 miles. For their defense a daily expenditure of 200,000,000 cartridges would be required. That is equivalent to 340 tons of guncotton.

This guncotton has entered so | thoroughly into ammunition of all rations that it is difficult to realize that the compound was only discovered in 18 45 by the Swiss chemist Schobein. He invented it by treating cotton wool with a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids. He then had it washed with water and dried, and even today its appearance hardly differs from that of the cotton wool from which it is manufactured. The effect of guncotton is not obtained by setting it on fire, as is the case with ordinary gunpowder. In fact, when a light is put to it it simply burns with a rapid flare and does not explode.

To make it disintegrate suddenly it has to be “detonated.” This can be done by hitting it a hard blow on an iron base, but it is usually exploded by the use of a “detonator,” composed of fulminate of mercury made by dissolving mercury in a mixture of- nitric acid and alcohol. It is a grayish-white powder discovered by an Englishman named Howard, and is used for percussion caps, for the slightest blow or rise of temperature will cause it to explode. It should also be remembered that 10 tons of cotton furnish about 18 tons of guncotton, and the eminent chemist, Sir William Ramsey, calculates that' Germany started this war with a reserve of 900 tons of guncottbn.—Pearson’s Weekly.