How has gunpowder provided the ingredients for world conflict?
Gunpowder, also called black powder, is an explosive mixture of sulfurSulfur Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element that has the atomic number 16. It is denoted with the symbol S. It is an abundant Valence non-metal, charcoalCharcoal Charcoal is the blackish residue consisting of impure carbon obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances…. and potassium nitratePotassium nitrate Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula PotassiumNitrogenOxygen3. A naturally occurring mineral source of nitrogen, KNO3 constitutes a critical oxidation component of black powder/gunpowder KNO3 (also known as saltpetre/saltpeter) that burns rapidly, producing volumes of hot solids and gases which can be used as a propellantPropellant. A propellant is a material that is used to move an object. This will often involve a chemical reaction. It may be a gas, liquid, Plasma , or, before the chemical reaction, a solid…. in firearms a
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy’s TALE OF A ROUGH GANG, bounty-hunting scalps in the mid-nineteenth-century American Southwest, contains a remarkable character named Judge Holden. Judge Holden’s importance in the novel is far greater than his actual position as one of this band of renegades and desperadoes under the command of the historical “Captain” John Joel Glanton.(1) The gang’s first meeting with Holden, in a story told by an ex-priest turned scalper named Ben Tobin, is fascinating.(2) Tobin opens with Glanton’s decimated gang in flight, retreating ahead of several score Apaches, on the run because out of black powder for their guns. The Apaches trail them “ridin four and six abreast and there was no short supply of them and they were in no hurry” (p. 126). “Every man jack of us knew that in that godforsook land somewhere was a draw or a cul-desac (sic) of perhaps just a pile of rocks and there we’d be driven to a stand with those empty guns.” On a solitary rock jutting from the
