in the battlefield for the past 500 years, exploded into thick smoke, blackening the gunners, fouling cannons and small arms, and obscuring the battlefield. Nitrocellulose was perceived as a possible "smokeless powder" and a propellant for artillery shells thus it received the name of guncotton. Attempts to manufacture guncotton for military use failed at first because the factories were prone to explode and, above all else, the burning speed of straight guncotton was always too high. It was not until 1884 that Paul Vieille tamed guncotton into a successful progressive smokeless gunpowder called Poudre B. Later on, in 1891, James Dewar and Frederick Augustus Abel also managed to transform gelatinized guncotton into a safe mixture, called cordite because it could be extruded into long thin cords before being dried. Legacy In 1990 an asteroid was named after him or his dog. Selected writings The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein 1836-1862 London: Williams & Norgate 1899. The Letters of Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Christian Friedrich Schönbein, 1830-1847 London: Williams & Norgate 1900. See also Timeline of hydrogen technologies References Further reading Brown G. I. The Big Bang: A History of Explosives, Sutton Publishing; 1998 () External links 1799 births 1868 deaths People from Metzingen People from the Duchy of Württemberg 19th-century German chemists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 19th-century German inventors 19th-century Swiss inventors