more numerous than us that this generally happened. We used to dismount and get together in a cluster, firing over the backs of the horses, while the Indians would gallop round and round us, shooting from the wrong side of their animals. I shot a few horses while I was with them, but never an Indian to my knowledge.

At one time all the detachments of the Rangers, by a combined movement, advanced up the country, driving the Indians before them. We drove them to the Rocky Mountains, and did not turn till we saw Santa Fé, in New Mexico. We thought that having been driven so far inland they would not take the trouble of coming all the way down to the settlements again; but I think they were just as troublesome after this as before. There was a line some distance in front of the settlements, and any Indian caught within that was flogged.

A year before I joined the Rangers the chieftains of the Comanches combined, overpowered them, and advanced into the settlements. There was tough fighting before they were expelled, but they never combined after that. There was such a distance between the detachments that any one of them could be easily overpowered before any assistance could come from the rest.

The Rangers were silent men; very little talking or fun went on amongst us, and real hard work it was for the most part. Sleeping in one's clothes night after night takes cheerfulness out of a person fast enough. There was no shaving, very little washing, no change of clothes. The men were tanned and dried. We had few quarrels, but these were generally fatal. An insulting look or word was replied to by a bullet. You might as well shoot a man at once as speak angrily to him. Our pay was forty dollars a month (about ten pounds). Besides this the men had plunder divided amongst them from time to time. Money up there was not of much avail, however. Sometimes we came down near the settlements. The settlers were hospitable fellows; we often had music and dancing at the ranches. The frontier men are all cattle-farmers and horse-breeders. The ranches are the large farms. The owner of these has native servants or slaves, called peons. The farmers of the frontier are generally very fine fellows. It requires a good deal of pluck to settle down there, for the Indians are perpetually making inroads. Even the children are armed there. Little children whom at home you would scarcely trust with a penknife wear revolvers here, and can use them well, too. The prairies are covered with what is called mosquito grass. There are few trees, but plenty of scrub and bushes. The prairies are well supplied with living things: great herds of wild cows, horses,

donkeys, and mules, keyutah (a kind of wolf), rattle-snakes, and skunks, mocking-birds, wild turkeys, and owls. The owls are very large and make a great noise.

The country has no hills, but plenty of elevations. It might be said to run in waves. Mosquitoes only appear where the ground is swampy or near rivers. We had no tents. At night we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and slept by the fire. When we stayed a few days in one place we used to cut down branches and make tents. It is not by any means an unpleasant climate. In the morning a breeze sets in from the south-east and cools the whole day, dying in the evening when it is not required.

I was about a year with the Rangers; during that time we lost over a third of our number. I left them near Fort Duncan. We went there to lay in provisions and ammunition. I made a raft of trees and pushed out alone on the Rio Grande, which flows through that place. The Rio is a strong, rapid river, and I went down gaily. I only floated by night, for fear of the Indians. Towards daybreak I used to push ashore with a long pole and lie close in the reeds and flags along the banks. I used to lie there all the day, and as soon as it was dark push out. In addition to this precaution I piled up branches around me on the raft, so that the whole looked like a drift of timber collected by accident. I suppose I travelled a hundred miles each night. There are no rapids, but the river is strong and fast. For food I had a little bag of biscuits and water in great abundance.

Texas is a very promising State. The original inhabitants are a mixture of Spaniards and Indians. The language is Spanish, with a few Indian words. The Americans, however, are pouring in rapidly and going ahead everywhere. They have money, skill, and pluck.

ARTHUR CLIVE.

SMOKELESS EXPLOSIVES FOR
SPORTING GUNS.

BY CADWALLADER WADDY.

UNPOWDER at the present epoch may be said to have reached the acme of perfection, and yet many are dissatisfied with it as a sporting explosive. Those who are accustomed to its use can urge but few facts in its favour, the chief of which are-safety from spontaneous combustion and regularity of explosive power. On the other hand, after every combustion of gunpowder a residuum is found in firearms, which in warm weather rapidly stiffens or beads, and lines the inside of the barrel with a powder crust; in damp weather, as every sportsman knows, this deposit becomes of a fluid and slimy consistency. This is produced by incomplete decomposition, and consists of the material parts thrown off on the decomposition of the gunpowder; the ashes of the charcoal, and sulphur in combination with charcoal, appear to predominate in this deposit. The more impure the ingredients which composed the gunpowder, and the greater the quantity consumed, the greater will be the deposit. With large charges proportionately less deposit is left in cannon than with lesser ones. This is accounted for by the greater force with which the former upon their discharge project a great part of the residuum out of the piece than do the latter from the proportionately longer barrels of sporting guns. In the former of these cases, in guns of great diameter, it spreads itself over the whole interior surface, and so forms a very thin layer, which readily imbibes the atmospheric air. The acids which this deposit contains act as decomposers of the metal of the interior of cannon, as well as of gun barrels. During the long and continuous use of a gun barrel the interior has been noticed to become restricted by this residuum to a prejudicial degree. Indeed, in nine cases out of ten, where sportsmen have had their hands, and in some cases their heads, blown off when in the act of loading, the fons et origo of the mishap has been found in this deposit or residuum of which we are speaking. For instance, if a muzzle-loading sporting gun be not cleaned, with every new charge a portion of the powder slime or crust is driven into the breech or chamber of the gun, and a very dangerous increase of this deposit is occasioned, which intercepts the fire, or may,

It not unfrequently

upon loading, effect a spontaneous ignition. happens in the army and navy that from not carefully "sponging" a great gun after firing, upon inserting the next charge it spontaneously explodes, and blows the "sponger" and "loader" from the muzzle. Many experiments have elicited that the residuum of the powder in the gun barrel is phosphorescent-i.e., emits a light in the dark-like many other oxides, especially those deposited by fire gas; but this is not a dangerous appearance. The cause of the powerful action of inflamed gunpowder is the extraordinarily rapid expansion of the gases and vapours of the so-called powder-damp, wrought by the high degree of heat to intense elasticity, which, in its sudden effort to occupy a much greater space than it occupied in its solid and material state, strives to overpower every obstacle that would oppose its expansion. This may be exemplified by igniting a single thoroughly dry grain of gunpowder in the open air, when it will be found to evolve and spread around itself a heated mass of air, which at the distance of four or five times the diameter of the grain is still capable of inflaming another grain. The spherical-shaped space which at this moment, in obedience to the aerostatic law, the expanding powder takes possession of on all sides. around it, and within which it is capable of communicating inflammation, is therefore from about five hundred to a thousand times greater than was the material bulk of the grain. Experiments and calculations have shown that the powder-damp, evolved by a closelyconfined quantity of powder, at the moment of inflammation and completest possible combustion strives to occupy a space about five thousand times greater than it occupied before, and from which it expanded. This would denote a force or power equal to five thousand times the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere. It is a great pity, however, that this continuous and rapid combustion should all end in smoke. But, as all sportsmen are aware to their chagrin, such is the case, even with the best gunpowder ever made. As a natural consequence, after firing the first barrel it is difficult to "get in" the second at a "covey," as by the time the curtain of smoke has lifted and enabled the sportsman to aim again at the retreating birds they are generally at a range when his tiny projectiles fall innocuous about their feathers. To invent a sporting explosive which should be "smokeless," and at the same time shoot with the regularity of gunpowder, has been the object of numerous practical sportsmen and of chemists for the last fifty years. Until, however, within the last four or five years no "practically" safe and efficient sporting explosive resulted from the amount of attention bestowed

on the subject. Amongst these inventions, that of gun cotton is first worthy of note, inasmuch as it approached nearer to the required desiderata for a sporting explosive-i.e., smokelessness -than any other invention having cellulose tissue as a basis. In 1832 M. Braconnot, a chemist of Nancy, in France, in treating starch with concentrated azotic acid was led to the discovery of a pulverulent and combustible product, to which he gave the name of icyloidine. This discovery was passed over, nevertheless, with but little notice, till in 1838 M. Pelouze, a chemist of some celebrity, resuming the labours of M. Braconnot, discovered that the very simple matters paper, cotton, linen, and a variety of tissues, as well as other substances, possess the fulminating property attributed to starch. It remained, however, for Professor Schönbein, of Basle, to adapt this discovery to firearms in the form and substance known as gun-cotton. This explosive is prepared by steeping cotton-wool for a longer or shorter period in a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids, thoroughly washing and then drying at a gentle heat. It consists, chemically, of the essential elements of gunpowder-i.e., carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen; but, in addition, it contains another highly elastic gas-hydrogen. The carbon in the fibres of the wool presents to the action of flame a most extended surface in a small space, and the result is an explosion approaching as near as possible to the instantaneous: in consequence of its rapid ignition the recoil of the gun is most violent. Sufficient time is not given to put the charge in motion, hence it is not looked upon with favour as a projectile agent amongst sportsmen. In addition to such a serious defect as the foregoing, gun-cotton possesses an unhappy knack of spontaneous combustion when in the act of drying after being damped, either purposely to keep it safe in store or from the result of exposure to the atmosphere. One would imagine that the recent awful explosion at Stowmarket and dreadful loss of life was sufficient warning to our Government to desist from attempting to thrust it into the hands of the army and navy for engineering purposes. We are informed, however, that, much against the wish and expressed opinion of the most eminent engineers of the day, such is their intention. The Prussian Government, after many trials, rejected gun-cotton from their arsenals, adopting, instead, the new explosive called "Lithofracteur," manufactured by Messrs. Krebs and Co., of Cologne. As Lithofracteur cannot explode unless ignited by a detonating fuze, one would imagine that our Government would follow the example of the Prussians and adopt it for mining and engineering purposes. We