Gun Cotton

a violent explosive. It is prepared by soaking cotton waste in the same acids that form nitroglycerin. After washing and treatment too detailed for description, it may be used loose, or it may be compressed into small cakes like gun wads by a pressure of from four to six tons per square inch. It is almost smokeless, and is used as a substitute for gunpowder. It is the forerunner of dynamite by which it has been supplanted for purposes of blasting. See Dynamite