WCP1606

The Storage of Gunpowder with absolute security

against explosion. By Alfred Russel Wallace

• The Storage of Gunpowder as at present conducted requires elaborate and expensive precautions which yet do not produce absolute security against accidental explosion.

• The great interest excited by any plan for attracting increased security was well shown a few years ago, when it was proposed to mix powdered glass with the gunpowder so as to render it inexplosion [sic?]. The glass to be sifted out before use. So many persons thought favourably of this plan, that a company was formed for the manufacture, but it was soon found that the greatly increased bulk and weight to be moved as well as the expense and inconvenience of sifting were fatal to success and nothing has been since heard of this scheme.

• The danger of the present mode of storing gunpowder is largely due to occasional leakage of the casks or kegs ^{or drums,} or to grains of powder lodging against or under the hoops or elsewhere ^covers; and this is a danger which as long as such vessels are used, it seems impossible absolutely to guard against.

• The present writer proposes a completely different system of storing gunpowder; viz. in strong zinc or copper drums of convenient sizes constructed with a cylindrical or slightly conical bunghole at the ^{top on one} side so as to allow of the drum being easily and completely emptied of its contents; and to be stopped by a strong screwed cap with thick india rubber washer or by an india rubber plug sealed if necessary with liquid plaster-of-paris so as to be air and water-tight. The drums should have a pair of strong handles rising a little higher than the stopper, and which would thus be to a great extent protected from accidental injury. (See rough sketch in margin)¹

• These drums immediately on being filled and properly plugged are immersed in water, which will effectually clean them from any externally adhering grains of powder, and the magazines r Storehouses are to be so arranged with shallow tanks, that the whole of the powder drums can be kept permanently covered with water.

• If any single drum notwithstanding previous tests should become leaky, the result will be that its contents will be spoilt and rendered incombustible, but it can in no way endanger the safety of the magazine.

• Gunpowder so stored would not only be kept safe but would require no exceptional precautions whatever. Even were fires kept burning in every part of the magazine the powder would be as safe as if it were so much sand.

• The drums could be made of different sizes (say to hold 50 or 100 lbs. each) but they should be all one height, so that all might be stored in the same cisterns or troughs. these cisterns could be made of brick and cement with inflow and waste pipes to keep the water at a level of about an inch above the bung hole of the drums. Where space was ample some acres of ground might be covered with such tanks, no building or roof being required, but only a boundary wall or fence. In fortresses or barracks buildings could be erected with the tanks in tiers one above the other, supported on brick piers, so as to store a large quantity of powder in a limited space.

• Powder drums when removed from the magazine would be necessarily watertight and also necessarily free externally from a single grain of powder. Their removal in ordinary carts therefore would be very safe; but to ensure absolute security special tank carts could be used; and if the drums were made² [3] square ^hexagonal instead of round they would pack so closely together that a vey small quantity of water would cover the whole and thus add but a trifle to the weight to be moved. Tank-barges could also be used.

• In vessels of war the same system might be adopted, the powder magazine being low down and consisting of covered tanks ^{divided into small compartments,} which being kept constantly full of water would act as ballast, even when the drums were empty removed.

• The drums could be opened and closed with great ease, the cap being rapidly unscrewed, or the plug withdrawn by a strong attached thumb ring and even if plaster of paris were used it can be chipped out in a few seconds. If however the plug hole were made slightly conical or tapering a well made india-rubber plug would probably fit perfectly water tight.

• If carefully carried out, the plan now proposed, would, it is submitted, not only be an absolute security against accidental explosion, but it would afford great facilities for the storage transmission and handy use of gunpowder, and although there would be some expense at first in drums and tanks these would last a long time, and the cost would be more than repaid by the actual ^absolute freedom from dangers,- by the sense of security in the public, and by the doing away with all the elaborate precautions which are now absolutely necessary, and nevertheless so often ^{but which are constantly proved to be} inefficient.

(signed)

Alfred R Wallace

Croydon July 1 1878

Godalming. June 1882

[4] ³

• The preceding description applies solely to the storage of gunpowder (and all other explosives) by the manufacturers, by governments, and by all large consumers. The same principle applied to the retail trade would give absolute security to all shops or storehouses where powder, etc. is kept for sale or for daily use. For this purpose similar metal cases would be used of the sizes judged most convenient (say from 4 oz. to 1 lb.) but all of the same height. These cases would be stored in a shallow cistern the ^{water being} kept always at same level by a ball-cock. and If the sale of any quantity less than the contents of the smallest canister were forbidden, not a grain of loose powder would ever be exposed ^{upon the premises} and the retail sale of gunpowder etc. would involve far less risk than that of petroleum, turpentine, oil, or any combustible materials.

Parkstone Dorset.

March 1899

Envelope addressed to "Mr. Alfred Russel Wallis [sic], Parkstone, Dorest", with stamp, postmarked "LONDON | 6:45PM | AP 10 99". Notes on front of envelope in ARW's hand in red crayon: "Gunpower Storage" and in blue crayon: "1878-1882". [Envelope (WCP1606.8315)]