Abstract
THE statement in NATURE of the 15th inst. (p. 575) that rackarock is “blasting gelatine” or “nitroglycerine with compressed gun-cotton” is incorrect. Rackarock is simply powdered potassium chlorate, impregnated with an inexpensive oily combustible, such as coal-tar oil, and is one of my safety-explosives, which I discovered in 1870, patented in England, April 6 and October 5, 1871, and described more fully in the Journal of the Chemical Society for August, 1873, under the title: “On a New Class of Explosives, which are non-Explosive during their Manufacture, Storage, and Transport.”
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SPRENGEL, H. The Hellgate Explosion and Rackarock. Nature 32, 625 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/032625a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/032625a0
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