There is a widespread misapprehension in regard to the devastating effect of these high explosives, for when unconfined the effect even of large charges of them upon structures is comparatively slight. At the Naval Ordnance Proving Ground, so long ago as 1884, repeated charges of dynamite, varying from five pounds to one hundred pounds in weight, were detonated on the face of a vertical target consisting of eleven one-inch wrought-iron plates bolted to a twenty-inch oak backing, until 440 pounds of dynamite had been so detonated in contact with it, and yet the target remained practically uninjured; while at Braamfontein the accidental explosion of fifty-five tons of blasting gelatin, which was stored in railway vans, excavated but 30,000 tons of soft earth. This last may seem a terrible effect, but the amount of explosive involved was enormous and the material one of the most energetic that we possess, while if we compare it with the action of explosives when confined its effect becomes quite moderate. Thus at Fort Lee, on the Hudson, but two tons of dynamite placed in a chamber in the rock and tamped brought down 100,000 tons of the rock; at Lamberis, Wales, two tons and a half of gelatin dynamite similarly placed threw out 180,000 tons of rock; and at the Talcen Mawr, in Wales, seven tons of gunpowder, placed in two chambers in the rock, dislodged from 125,000 to 200,000 tons of rock. We might cite many such examples, but on comparing these we find that the gunpowder confined in the interior at the Talcen Mawr was over forty-two times as efficient as the explosive gelatin on the surface at Braamfontein, while the dynamite at Fort Lee was over ninety times as destructive. [Illustration: RAILROAD TORPEDOES FASTENED ON RAIL.] [Illustration: STEEL DISKS UPON WHICH GUN COTTON HAS BEEN DETONATED TO TEST THEIR RESISTANCE TO SHOCK. Midvale steel disks after second fire.] Considerations similar to these led me, in 1885,[H] to point out that high explosives for use in shells must be strongly confined, and in the attack on armored ships they should be fired in projectiles that can “either penetrate the armor partially and explode in place or pierce it completely and burst inside the ship” to secure the greatest efficiency. This requires that the projectiles shall be fired at higher velocities than can be imparted to them by guns of the kind just described, and which can only be realized at present in modern breech-loading rifles. Although experience has shown the futility of all our efforts to use gun cotton and nitroglycerin explosives in this manner, it has been proved that the nitro-substitution explosives can be employed with safety and effect. [H] Van Nostrand’s Engineering Magazine, vol. xxxii, pp. 1-9, 1885.