Things I've learned from Wikipedia, and sometimes other places.
This is commentary. And this is really good.
Gunpowder manufacturing
"For the most powerful black powder meal, a wood charcoal is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific willow, but others such as alder or buckthorn can be used... Cottonwood was used by the American Confederate States."
"The ingredients are reduced in particle size and mixed as intimately as possible. Originally this was with a mortar-and-pestle or a similarly operating stamping-mill, using copper, bronze or other non-sparking materials, until supplanted by the rotating ball mill principle with non-sparking bronze or lead."
"The mix was dampened with alcohol or water during grinding to prevent accidental ignition. This also helps the extremely soluble saltpeter mix into the microscopic nooks and crannies of the very high surface-area charcoal."
"Around the late 14th century AD, European powdermakers first began adding liquid during grinding to improve mixing, reduce dust, and with it the risk of explosion. The powdermakers would then shape the resulting paste of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains. Not only did corned powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. Before long, powdermakers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand."
"The powdermakers" is a good name. For potions makers, maybe?
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Saltpeter, also called niter, is a "colorless to white mineral... usually found as massive encrustations and efflorescent growths on cavern walls and ceilings where solutions containing alkali potassium and nitrate seep into the openings."
"The name is from the Greek νιτρων nitron from the Ancient Egyptian netjeri, related to the Hebrew néter... [which] may have been used as, or in conjunction with soap."
"Because of its ready solubility in water, niter is most often found in arid environments. A major source of sodium nitrate mineral... is the Atacame desert in Chile. Potassium and other nitrates are of great importance for use in fertilizers and, historically, gunpowder."
"A major source of potassium nitrate was the deposits crystallizing from cave walls and the accumulations of bat guano in caves. Extraction is accomplished by immersing the guano in water for a day, filtering, and harvesting the crystals in the filtered water."
"Niter-beds are prepared by mixing manure with either mortar or wood ashes, common earth and organic materials such as straw to give porosity to a compost pile typically 1.5x2x5 meters in size. The heap was usually under a cover from the rain, kept moist with urine, turned often to accelerate the decomposition, then finally leached with water after approximately one year, to remove the soluble calcium nitrate which was then converted to potassium nitrate by filtering through the potash."
"LeConte describes a process using only urine and not dung, referring to it as the Swiss method. Urine is collected directly, in a sandpit under a stable. The sand itself is dug out and leached for nitrates which were then converted to potassium nitrate via potash, as above."
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"Sulfur may be found by itself and historically was usually obtained in this way, while pyrite has been a source of sulfur via sulfuric acid. In volcanic regions in Sicily, in ancient times, it was found on the surface of the Earth, and the 'Sicilian process' was used: sulfur deposits were piled and stacked in brick kilns built on sloping hillsides, with airspaces between them.Then, some sulfur was pulverized, spread over the stacked ore and ignited, causing the free sulfur to melt down the hills."
"Eventually the surface-borne deposits played out, and miners excavated veins that ultimately dotted the Sicilian landscape with labyrinthine mines. Mining was unmechanized and labor-intensive, with pickmen freeing the ore from the rock, and mine-boys or carusia carrying baskets of ore to the surface, often through a mile or more of tunnels."
"I am not prepared just not to say to what extent I believe in a physical hell in the next world, but a sulphur mine in Sicily is about the nearest thing to hell that I expect to see in this life." Booker T. Washington
"English translations of the Bible commonly referred to burning sulfur as 'brimstone'... It is from this part of the Bible that Hell is implied to 'smell of sulfur' (likely due to its association with volcanic activity). According to the Ebers Papyrus, a sulfur ointment was used in ancient Egypt to treat granular eyelids. Sulfur was used for fumigation in preclassical Greece... [Pliny the Elder] mentions its use for fumigation, medicine, and bleaching cloth."
"A Song Dynasty military treatise of 1044 ADD described different formulas for Chinese black powder, which is a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur."
"Elemental sulfur was used, mainly in creams, to alleviate conditions such as scabies, ringworm, psoriasis, eczema, and acne. Elemental sulfur does oxidize slowly to sulfurous acid, which in turn (through the action of sulfite) acts as a mild reducing and antibacterial agent."
"'Dusting sulfur,' elemental sulfur in powdered form, is a common fungicide for grapes, strawberry, many vegetables and several other crops. It has a good efficacy against a wide range of powdery mildew diseases as well as black spot... It is the only fungicide used in organically farmed apple production against the main disease apple scab under colder conditions."
"Elemental sulfur powder is used... against ticks and mites. A common method of use is to dust clothing or limbs with sulfur powder."
"Small amounts of sulfur dioxide gas addition... to fermented wine to produce traces of sulfurous acid... has been called 'the most powerful tool in winemaking.' After the yeast-fermentation stage in winemaking, sulfites absorb oxygen and inhibit aerobic bacterial growth that otherwise would turn ethanol into acetic acid, souring the wine. Without this preservative step, indefinite refrigeration of the product before consumption is usually required."
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Cordite after the Second Boer War was comprised of 65% nitrocellulose (gun cotton), 30% nitroglycerine, and 5% petroleum jelly. Gun cotton is produced by "nitrating cellulose [such as starch, wood fibers, or cotton] through exposure to nitric acid or another powerful nitrating agent." Nitroglycerine is produced using a "nearly 1:1 mixture of concentrated sulfuric acid and concentrated nitric acid."
Mixed with gunpowder in a liquid form it was called blasting oil "but this was extremely unstable and difficult to handle, as evidenced in numerous catastrophes."
"Dynamite mixtures [of nitroglycerine] containing nitrocellulose, which increases the viscosity of the mix, are commonly known as 'gelatins.'"
Petroleum jelly has also been called soft paraffin and rod wax.
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Hydrogen was first called "flammable air," and was produced by a "reaction between iron filings and dilute acids."
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Hill People often "live in stone houses and herd goats, sheep or camelids or have small farms. Musical instruments of the hill people, such as various forms of bagpipe or horn are notable for their ability to be heard at great distances. Hill people are often divided into tribes that have a tradition of feuding among each other while resisting control by any central government."
The Drakensberg "lived by cattle herding and small-scale farming, growing crops such as sorghum, maize, corn, pumpkins, beans and vegetables."
"[Hill tribes] seen from the valley kingdoms as our 'living ancestors'... what we were like before we discovered wet-rice cultivation, Buddism, and civilization... [are on the contrary] best understood as runaway, fugitive, maroon communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppressions of state-making projects in the valleys-- slavery, conscription, taxes, corvee labor, epidemics, and warfare." James C. Scott, in The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.
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"Gurkhas traditionally returned to their homeland of Nepal following their military service, to resume a life of subsistence farming or labour. The country's poor infrastructure and lack of welfare system led to a high number of ex-Gurkhas facing destitution. When the extent of their hardship came to light in the late 1960s, officers in the British Army established a charity-- the Gurkha Welfare Trust-- to ensure that all former soldiers would live out their retirement in dignity."
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