Different civilised communities favour different kinds of explosives as a gentle means of attaining their ambitions, and these explosives may be solids, liquids, or gases. In this country picric acid (or, tri-nitro-phenol), and tri-nitro-toluene (or in its abbreviated and more easily pronounced form "T.N.T.") are the two kinds most extensively adopted for the filling of high-explosive shells. Owing, however, to certain unexplained caprices in which it is known to indulge, owing, too, to the fact that persons employed on its manipulation have died from the effects of trotyl poisoning, T.N.T. is less extensively employed, in spite of certain known and obvious advantages which it possesses over picric acid. Picric acid solidifies after being run in a molten condition into the shell, and every precaution has to be taken in order to prevent, during solidification, the formation of cavities, because the least tendency to friction that might occur due to the "setting back" of this hard explosive mass resultant on the sudden forward movement of the shell might easily give rise to a "premature." Herein we recognise the vital importance of wholly harmonious internal blending, absence of which might prove a further source of friction entailing imminent peril to ourselves as we stand beside the gun. Again, picric acid is ever seeking opportunities for combining with metal, whereby compounds of a nature most sensitive, and styled "picrates," are created, and of which the most sensitive is the lead-picrate. Hence we breathe a silent prayer that not only has the shell's inside been sprayed in the most efficacious and thorough manner possible, but that the composition of the varnish itself is entirely lead free. Our wives, our families, our friends, we fain would turn to them as of a sudden a fresh suggestion, fraught with peril dire, creeps from out some hidden corner of our timorous mind.