File:The railroad and engineering journal (1887) (14781111673).jpg

Identifier: railroadengineer65newy (find matches)
Title: The railroad and engineering journal
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors:
Subjects: Railroad engineering Engineering Railroads
Publisher: New York : M.N. Forney
Contributing Library: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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for in this direction. THE SAFE HIGH EXPLOSIVES. (From the New York Times.)The heavy sentence of four years imprisonment, in ad-dition to fines, imposed the other day on four persons con-nected with the alleged sale of the secret of melinite to theArmstrongs gives a new turn to that strange affair. It wasrecently announced by the Minister of War that M. Tur-pin, the inventor, and Captain Tripone, the agent of theArmstrongs, really had nothing of value to the FrenchGovernment to negotiate for, and that the most importantpart of the invention—the means of exploding meliniteafter it has been united with another substance in theshell—remained in the sole possession of the Government.This second substance is cresilite, a nitro cresol obtainedfrom a coal-tar product ; and after two-thirds of the spacein the shell has been filled with it, melinite is rammed in—a fact which sufficiently indicates that both products canbe safely handled, and can be exploded only by a power-ful detonator.
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t/) (/)< Q < Q z < Ht/i Q <:o OS -J CO C/) Id t- > o O ^ OU 2 o o >J Z q: Ul w T. z Id > w o o H >■(/) zz W D CL, CO < Vol. LXV, No. 8.) ENGINEERING JOURNAL. 353 This melinite affair has naturally had an interest for allcountries that are trying; to solve the problem of securinga safe high explosive as the bursting charge of shells usedin ordinary powder guns. It seems clear that Turpinmade the original invention from which the official mtlinileof to-day has been developed, and sold it to the Englishfirm when the French Government was not satisfied withit. The English high e.xplosive l<nown as lyddite, whichhas been used for several years in experiments at Lydd,has always been spoken of as the invention of Turpin,and it is known to be largely picric acid, which is also thefoundation of melinite. The French were perfectly wellaware that the English were using this subsance, andthat to that extent the secret of safe high ex

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