The Magazine (But I Would Have Called It the Armory!)

Now, I was not set to be impressed by this place.  With a name like "The Magazine" I imagined (fake) barrels full of gunpowder stacked floor to ceiling.  But nooooooo!

Inside the nine foot brick walls is a courtyard.  Inside the building were a set of very steep, winding stairs. At the tip top of the stairs were a whole bunch of folks absolutely enthralled by a portly speaker.

This man knew everything about every one of these armaments and gunpowder and our early wars!

He said that during the American Revolution, we started out with about 80,000 pounds of gunpowder (if I'm reading my notes right.)  That sounds like a bunch, but consider the fact that, in the first two years of the war, we imported 1.7 MILLION pounds from France.  By wars end we acquired almost 3 million pounds!

He said that saltpeter is hard to make and takes a FULL YEAR to process.

Now, I know that you have desired to know this recipe most of your life, so here it is.

You take an enormous pile of excrement - cow, horse, human, whatever.
Mix in a whole passel of lime to maintain the bacteria.
Once a week for a year you have to soak that pile with urine - cow, horse, human, whatever.
Once a week for a year you have to stir it up.
After the year has passed, (are you ready?) you have to taste it.  If it's salty, you have saltpeter; if it's not salty, you have a huge pile of fertilizer and have to start the whole recipe over again!

If you have saltpeter, put it all in a pot and boil and stir and remove all solids.
Boil until all of the water (?) evaporates.

Then take the saltpeter and in the following proportions create gunpowder:
75% saltpeter
25% sulphur
25% charcoal

(Guess that's why there were no stacks and stacks of barrels of gunpowder, huh?)

Interesting modern fact:  70% of today's saltpeter supply comes from India and is controlled by England!

This guy explained the differences between each of the weapons that encircled the room, it's advantages and disadvantages, and was just a walking encyclopedia of information.  We must have sat there an hour, and he never slowed down.  Granpa finally said, "Let's go and give some other folks room."

Sigh.  Well, if I must ... I'm a sucker for implements of defense, though!