The value and importance of saltpetre as a source of power is seen in the adaptation of its explosive force to special purposes.  It performs that work well which we cannot carry on so perfectly by means of any other agent, and the great mining and engineering works of a country are dependent on this source for their success, and for overcoming obstacles where other forces fail.  With positive certainty the engineer can remove a portion of a cliff or rock without breaking it into many parts, and can displace masses to convenient distances, under all the varying demands which arise in the process of mining, tunnelling, or cutting into the earth.

In all these cases of application we see that the powder contains within itself both the material for producing force and the means by which that force is applied, no other motor being necessary in its application.

Modern warfare has become in its simplest expression the intelligent application of force, and that side will successfully overcome or resist the other which can in the shortest time so direct the greater force.  In artillery as well as infantry practice, the control over the time necessary in the decomposition of the powder has been obtained through the refinements already made in the manufacture, and the best results of the latest trials confirm in full the conclusion that saltpetre is a source of great and easily controlled power, which can act through short or extended space.

Under the view here presented, it is evident that saltpetre is indispensable to progress in the arts of civilization and peace, as well as in military operations, and that no nation can advance in material interests, or even maintain strict independence, without possessing within its boundaries either saltpetre or the sources from which it can be drawn at all times.  In its use for protecting the property of a nation from the attacks of an enemy, and as the means of insuring respect, we may consider saltpetre as an element of strength in a State, and as such deserving a high place in the consideration of those who direct the counsels or form the policy of a country.

Has the subject of having an exhaustless supply of this important product or the means of producing it been duly considered?

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WEATHER IN WAR.

It is not very flattering to that glory-loving, battle-seeking creature, Man, that his best-arranged schemes for the destruction of his fellows should often be made to fail by the condition of the weather.  More or less have the greatest of generals been “servile to all the skyey influences.”  Upon the state of the atmosphere frequently depends the ability of men to fight, and military hopes rise and fall with the rising and falling of the metal in the thermometer’s tube.  Mercury governs Mars.  A hero is stripped of his plumes by a tempest, and his laurels fly away