The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

404 PRIMARY EXPLOSIVES, DETONATORS, AN'D PRIMERS
Cassius practically to the manufacture of ruby glass. In his posthumous
Laboratorium Chymicum he says: 3
Further evidence that mercury is cold is to be seen when
vou dissolve it in aqua jortis (nitric acid), evaporate the
solution to dryness, pour highly rectified spiritum vini (alcohol)
over the residue, and then warm it slightly so that it
begins to dissolve. It commences to boil with amazing vigor.
If the glass is somewhat stopped up, it bursts into a thousand
pieces, and, in consequence, it must by no means be
stopped up. I once dissolved silver and mercury together in
aqua jortis and poured over it an excess of spiritum vini, and
set the mixture to putrify in fimum equinum (horse manure"!
after having stopped up the glass with mere sealing wax
only. When it happened a few days later that the manure
became a little warm, it made such a thunder-crack, with
the shattering of the glass, that the stable-servant imagined,
since I had put it in a box, either that someone had shot at
him through the window or that the Devil himself was active
in the stable. As soon as I heard this news, I was able easily
to see that the blame was mine, that it must have been my
glass. Now this was with silver and mercury, 2 loth of each.
Mercury does the same thing 4 alone, but silver not at all.
The preparation and properties of mercury fulminate were
described in much detail by Edward Howard 5 in 1800 in a paper
presented to the Royal Society of London. The method of preparation
which he found to be most satisfactory was as follows:
100 grains of mercury was dissolved by heating in IV2 drams of
nitric acid (specific gravity 1.3), the solution was cooled and
added to 2 ounces of alcohol (specific gravity 0.849) in a glass
vessel, the mixture was warmed until effervescence commenced,
the reaction was allowed to proceed to completion, and the precipitate
which formed was collected on a filter, washed with distilled
water, and dried at a temperature not exceeding that of
the water bath. Howard found that the fulminate was exploded
by means of an electric spark or by concentrated sulfuric acid
brought into contact with it. When a few grains were placed on a
3 Kunckel, "Collegium Physico-Chymicum Experimental, oder Laboratorium
Chymicum," ed. Engelleder, Hamburg, 1716, p. 213. Cf. Davis,
Army Ordnance, 7, 62 (1926).
4 Kunckel's meaning in the last sentence is evidently that mercury nitrate
reacts with alcohol on warming, and that silver nitrate does not react with
alcohol under the same conditions.
5 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc, 204 (1800).