One of the recipes for making detonating powder is:—
One ounce of oxymuriate of potash.
One eighth of an ounce of superfine charcoal.
One sixteenth of an ounce of sulphur.
Mixed with gum-arabic water, and then dried. It should be mixed up in wood, for fear of accident.
Another, and, I am told, a far better proportion, is:—
Five of oxymuriate, Two of sulphur; and
One of charcoal.
I merely give the recipe, in case a sportsman should be in a place where he cannot buy the composition, as I presume, that no one in his senses would run the risk of being blown up, in order to make, perhaps indifferently, what he could so cheaply purchase in perfection.—Hawker.
We entirely agree with the colonel—and caution insurance companies against gentlemen who would attempt a home manufacture.