We have used the well-known term Gunpowder to express the compound by
which we easily obtain the power latent in saltpetre; and the use of the
term suggests the employment of guns, which is secondary to the main
point we are illustrating. As the enormous consumption of power takes
place during peaceful times, so the consumption of saltpetre during a
state of war is much lessened, because the prosecution of public and
private works is then nearly suspended.

The value and importance of saltpetre as a source of power is seen in
the adaptation of its explosive force to special purposes. It performs
that work well which we cannot carry on so perfectly by means of any
other agent, and the great mining and engineering works of a country are
dependent on this source for their success, and for overcoming obstacles
where other forces fail. With positive certainty the engineer can remove
a portion of a cliff or rock without breaking it into many parts, and
can displace masses to convenient distances, under all the varying
demands which arise in the process of mining, tunnelling, or cutting
into the earth.

In all these cases of application we see that the powder contains within
itself both the material for producing force and the means by which that
force is applied, no other motor being necessary in its application.

Modern warfare has become in its simplest expression the intelligent
application of force, and that side will successfully overcome or resist
the other which can in the shortest time so direct the greater force.
In artillery as well as infantry practice, the control over the time
necessary in the decomposition of the powder has been obtained through
the refinements already made in the manufacture, and the best results
of the latest trials confirm in full the conclusion that saltpetre is a