Green mix is an early step in the manufacturing of black powder for explosives. It is a rough mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur in the correct proportions (75:15:10) for black powder, but is not milled, pressed or corned. It burns much more slowly than black powder, when it chooses to burn at all; the deflagration is usually characterized by short, uneven sizzling followed by relatively long periods of smoulder. Green mix is merely an unfinished product and not generally used itself in any pyrotechnic or projectile applications.
Famous quotes containing the words green and/or mix:
“With sudden roar and aged pine-tree falls,—
One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree,
Declares the close of its green century.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Much of our reading, much of our labor, seems mere waiting: it was not that we were born for. Any other could do it as well or better. So little skill enters into these works, so little do they mix with the divine life, that it really signifies little what we do, whether we turn a grindstone, or ride, or run, or make fortune, or govern the state.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)