thought to be a very unstable compound. But experiments have proved
that, when made pure, it is perfectly stable.

Having now explained how the knowledge came to be arrived at that the
aforementioned compound of highest grade nitro-glycerine and highest
grade gun-cotton would constitute the best basis for a smokeless powder,
I will now mention a few of the other conditions necessary to success
with its use, without assuming that smokeless powder has yet passed its
experimental stage, and is beyond further improvement. Nevertheless,
such is the compound which has come to stay as the basis of all
smokeless powders; and any smokeless powder, if a successful one, may be
counted upon as being made of this compound of gun-cotton and
nitro-glycerine, or of a colloid of gun-cotton, either alone or combined
with diluents, oxygen-bearing salts, or inert matter. The fact that
smokeless powder may still be said to be in somewhat of an experimental
stage is not to admit that it is not a success. Firearms, cartridge
cases, and projectiles are also still in an experimental stage, for they
are constantly being improved; yet their use has been a great success
for a good many years.

The question of success of a smokeless powder does not rest alone with
the powder itself. The gun, the cartridge case, primer, and bullet have
been as much the subjects of experiments in adapting them to the use of
smokeless powder as has the smokeless powder in being adapted to them.
To impart a velocity of 2,000 feet per second to a rifle ball, with
corresponding long range and accuracy of flight, has been a question as
much of improvement in rifles and projectiles as in the powder. To give
a velocity of 2,000 feet per second to a bullet, requires a pressure of
at least 15 English tons in the chamber of a gun. This would be a
dangerous pressure in an old-fashioned shoulder arm; while a bullet made