Composition
For the composition of the flammable material used in a carcass, 18th century philosopher Christian Wolff prescribed 10 parts of pounded gunpowder, 2 of nitre, 1 of sulfur, and 1 of colophony; or 6 of gunpowder, 4 of nitre, 4 of sulfur, 1 of beaten glass, 0.5 of antimony 0.5 of camphor, 1 of sal armoniac, and 0.25 of common salt. For the shell, he started with two iron rings (others used plates), fitting one at one extreme, near the aperture at which the carcass was to be fired, and the other at the other. These he braced with cords drawn lengthwise; and across these, at right angles, laced other cords, making a knot at each intersection. Between the folds of the cords, he made holes, inserted copper tubes, and filled them half full of powder and lead bullets, packing it in with a tow. The internal shell's aperture was then plugged up, and it was immersed in a mixture of 4 parts of melted pitch, 20 of rosin, 1 of oil of turpentine, and as much ground gunpowder as was needed to reduce it to the consistency of a paste. After immersion, the shell was to be covered with tow, and immersed again, until it was the proper size for the mortar.
Carcass shells as used by the Royal Navy from the 18th to the 19th centuries were filled with a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, rosin, sulfide of antimony, tallow and turpentine.
Read more about this topic: Carcass (projectile)
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)