Rub the mass
through a sieve. 6. Shake up the grains in a box. 7. Get rid of the dust.
8. Dry the grains.
The ingredients should be used as pure as they can be obtained. For
making a few charges of coarse powder, the sieve may be dispensed with:
in this case, roll the dough into long pieces of the thickness of a pin;
lay several of these side by side, and mince the whole into small grains;
dust with powder, to prevent their sticking together: and then proceed as
already described.
To procure good Charcoal.--Light woods that give a porous charcoal, are
the best;--as poplar, alder, lime, horse-chestnut, willow, hazel-nut, and
elder. It should be made with the greatest care, and used as soon as
possible afterwards: it is the most important ingredient in gunpowder.
Sulphur.--The lumps must be melted over a gentle fire; the pot should
then be put in a heap of hot sand, to give the impurities time to settle,
before it cools into a mass. When this has taken place, the bottom part
must be broken off and put aside as unfit for making gunpowder, and the
top part alone used. Flower of sulphur is quite pure.
Saltpetre.--Dissolve the saltpetre that you wish to purify, in an equal
measure of boiling water; a cupful of one to a cupful of the other.
Strain this solution, and, letting it cool gradually, somewhat less than
three-fourths of the nitre will separate in regular crystals.
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