9781422277584

hardly changed since medieval times. Meanwhile, however, the conditions for change were being established. In about 1845 Christian Friedrich Schönbein (1799–1868), professor of chemistry at the University of Basle, found that if cotton and other forms of nearly pure cellulose are treated with nitric acid, a highly explosive product called “guncotton” is formed. Its explosive power was so much greater than that of gunpowder that in 1846, Schönbein patented it in Britain, and manufacture was started in a gunpowder works at Faversham, Kent, England. Guncotton factories were also built in France and elsewhere in Europe. In the summer of 1847, there was a disastrous explosion at Faversham and twenty-one men were killed. No further attempt at producing guncotton was made in Britain at that time, and in Europe the dangerous work was continued only in Austria. Many years elapsed before Sir Frederick Abel (1827–1902) discovered how to make guncotton safe to handle. At about the same time, another important discovery had been made in Italy. Ascanio Sobrero (1812–88), professor of chemistry at the University of Turin, had found in 1846 that a violently explosive oily liquid is produced by treating glycerine with nitric acid. However, this liquid explosive was too unreliable to use. It was Alfred Nobel who transformed a dangerous liquid chemical novelty into a safe and powerful explosive.

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