CHAPTER VIII LETTERS FROM BERZELIUS (1846), HALL AND SCHÖNBEIN (1847), ON GUNCOTTON, IN 1846 Schönbein entered into negotiations with Messrs John Hall & Sons, Faversham (now associated with Messrs Curtis's & Harvey, Ltd.), who erected the first guncotton factory at Faversham. By a disastrous explosion on 14th July 1847 the factory was destroyed, with the loss of so me twenty lives. The author is indebted to the kindness of Mr C. L. Watson-Smith, of Faversham, for the following historical letters on the subject of guncotton, and, in addition, some of the original intimations to miners and others on the sale and use of guncotton. Letter from Mr Hall to Professor Schönbein, [Discoverer of guncotton] Bâle. London, 23 Lombard Street, August 1847. DEAR SIR,—The circumstances attending the late awful explosion of our guncotton establishment and the awful sacrifice of life connected with the destruction of so much property, have so overwhelmed us with trouble, and difficulty, that we have hardly been able to settle our minds, so as to be able to make any detailed communication to you, on the subject. Our Mr P. Brames Hall wrote to Mr Barron at Berlin and handed him the report of the inquest held at Favershain on Friday the 16th ultimo, as it appeared in the Times newspaper, and we understood from Mr Barron, that he enclosed this paper to you, but up to the time that he was here on the 11 th instant he had not heard from you, neither have we had any letter from you on the subject. On the 9th instant the adjourned inquest was held and the jury came to the conclusion that Henry Toppin and others were killed by the explosion of a certain guncotton factory, but how that explosion arose no evidence appeared. Eighteen persons were killed by that explosion, ten only could be recognized, the remainder were literally blown to atoms, and scattered with the materials in every possible direction. One other person who inhaled the fumes of the acid, and who acted incautiously by not attending to medical advice, also died on the evening of the explosion, making nineteen persons. Of the survivors, fourteen in number, who suffered dreadfully by broken limbs, contusions, and being burnt by the acids, one has since died, and we fear one or two more will hardly recover. Some are maimed, and we are obliged by principles of sympathy to maintain them, and furnish medical advice and assistance. We believe that arrangements that had been matured after many months of painful and hazardous personal attention, on the part of our Mr William Hall, worked out by practical and growing experience acquired by incessant application, for it must be remembered that any small essays of illustrating the mode of preparing, stoving and packing were perfectly futile, when applied to the production of the article in large quantities, where the control of temperature and the difficulty the men have in sustaining respiration with the drying and packing are brought into the account (without any special directions for large operations), are matters to which we must say we are indebted to our own experience and are all contingencies we have had to work out, and what we believe no house but ourselves would have had courage to encounter, but which have been thwarted with a destruction of life and property distressing to contemplate and alarming to the surrounding neighbourhood from the fear of any similar catastrophe. This calamity, attended with all its trying and appalling circumstances, has exceedingly embarrassed our position and has placed us in the situation of submitting to you the first moment we could get in the accounts, a balance-sheet showing the loss and the divisible third, which we place to your debit, in this painful matter. As much of the detail must have come to your knowledge by the public papers, you will, independent of the main facts, recognize what is the feeling of scientific men regarding the manufacture of the article on a large scale. We had made preparations and provided machinery to produce the article in large quantities, but as all scientific men agree that its principles are not even yet understood, no party can produce it without all those contingencies that endanger life and property, and that connected with the most determined opposi- tion of public feeling and interested parties, preventing us getting it about the country, utterly precluding for the present any possibility of our concentrating any quantity in any magazines whatever of either public or private property. For these reasons we now submit to you that the present agreement must be cancelled, and that we must be left entirely free and unfettered by any conditions to do the best we can, either with respect to any operations of our own in the re-erection and organization of our establishment for the manufacture of the article either now or hereafter, or in the granting of licences to companies or individuals under such plans, directions and instructions as we feel best adapted from the experience we have ourselves acquired, and this upon the further understanding that one-fourth of whatever profit may arise may be accorded to you, and three-fourths to ourselves. You may rest assured of the deep anxiety we have in working out this affair in the best way we can to recover some portion of the severe loss we have incurred, and that it remains with you to facilitate and promote our views in every possible way in your power, for we must confess to you that we should never have entered into any agreement or had anything to do with the matter had we not relied on your express declaration that the guncotton could be made for tenpence sterling per pound, a price assumed on fallacious data and wholly at variance with experience and facts. We intend to submit these accounts to Mr Barron, who will be able to trace every item and have any explanation that may be necessary for his satisfaction. We are, etc. ------------- HISTORICAL PAPERS ON MODERN EXPLOSIVES George W. MacDonald, M.Sc. (Melb.) (Head Of Research, Messrs Curtis's & Harvey, Ltd. Former 1851 Exhibition Scholar, The University Of Melbourne.) With An Introduction By Sir Andrew Noble, Bart., K.C.B., F.R.S. Whittaker & Co., 2 White Hart Street, Paternoster Square. London, E.C. And 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York. 1912