LECTURES ON EXPLOSIVES. Prepared especially as a manual and guide in the laboratory of the U. S. Artillery School, by Willoughby Walke, 1st Lieutenant, 5th Artillery. -Artillery School Press : Fort Monroe, Va., 1891.
The subject is presented by Lieutenant Walke in the form of twenty-three lectures. He states in the preface that "the aim has been to present the subject systematically and logically, due consideration being given to the sequence in which the various classes of explosives are arranged, so that a certain degree of familiarity may be acquired in manipulating the less sensitive and dangerous mixtures before undertaking experiments with the high explosives." This intention has been well carried out, resulting in an excellent guide and reference book on explosives. The first four lectures are devoted to the chemistry, reactions, constitution and classification of explosive bodies, which are followed by six lectures on explosive mixtures, five of which are specially devoted to gunpowder, manufacture of various forms of it, tests, densimetry. After these the explosive compounds are dealt with in order. Separate lectures are devoted to gun-cotton; its manufacture at the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station; service tests of gun-cotton; nitroglycerine; gun-cotton powders and dynamites; smokeless powders; explosives of the Sprengel class; fulminates and similar compounds; manipulation, transportation and storage of high explosives; the use of high explosives for military purposes; the use of high explosives in shell; explosion by influence or sympathetic explosion. The service tests of the various explosives have received particular attention.
H. G. D.
THE ELASTIC STRENGTH OF GUNS. Meigs-Ingersoll. 1891. The Deutsch Lithographing and Printing Co.
The edition of the Elastic Strength of Guns published in 1885 by Lieutenants Meigs and Ingersoll having become exhausted, the latter officer has prepared this second edition for the use of naval cadets. Advantage has been taken of this to make a few changes and additions. There are additional explanatory figures, and all are placed on folding leaves for greater convenience. A large number of practical examples are inserted, the data coming from the new steel guns for the Navy, and a change in the notation assists the student in attacking the rather difficult problem of the computation of the shrinkages. A chapter on Longitudinal Strength is added, and one also giving the elementary principles governing the Construction of Wire-Wound Guns in view of what the author considers a probable development in that form of construction. The formulas of the book are Clavarino's, and for the purpose of comparison so much of Birnie's (Capt. Rogers Birnie, Jr., Ord. Dept., U. S. A.) formulas and work as necessary are given in the last chapter. The latter neglects the longitudinal strain, and computes the shrinkages from consideration of the gun in a state of rest, while the method of the text considers the longitudinal strains, and all computations proceed from a consideration of the strains in the gun when the maximum powder pressure is acting.
H. C. G.
A COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IN ORDNANCE AND GUNNERY, U. S. MILITARY ACADEMY. By Captain Henry Metcalfe, Ord. Dept., U. S. Army. Second edition, 1891. John Wiley & Sons.
This book is used as a text-book at the U. S. Military Academy in the course of instruction in Ordnance and Gunnery, and comprises a full treatise, so far as principles are concerned, on those comprehensive subjects. The chapters are conveniently subdivided by headings to paragraphs, which plan greatly assists the student and instructor. Numerous examples are inserted in appropriate places for solution. The plates are published in a separate volume, a feature which is sometimes considered an advantage.
R. R. I.