The gun-cotton manufactory at Stowmarket, said to be the largest
of the kind in the world, blew up on Friday evening, killing about thirty persons, and wounding treble that number. Two of the principal partners in the factory were blown to pieces in the effort to remove some boxes of cartridges, which were, as they thought, incombustible except by fire. No idea can be formed of the origin of the explosion ; but there is good reason to fear that it was due to the heat of the atmosphere, which dried the gun-cotton too much. Should that explanation prove correct, it will for a time be almost fatal to the manufac- ture, as it must be abandoned in the summer, to the immense loss both of the Company and their workmen. The only func- tion in which the cotton, however, is as yet irreplaceable, is as an explosive force for torpedoes, which the Messrs. Prentice were at the time manufacturing in great numbers for the British Govern- ment. It is possible that science may yet tame gun-cotton com- pletely, but until that is accomplished it ought to be manufac- tured like gunpowder, only in lonely marshes.
