Acid Gallery

Oarweed, Laminaria digitata

Oarweed, Laminaria digitata, Laminaire digitee. Handcoloured steel engraving by Oudet after a botanical illustration by Edouard Maubert from Pierre Oscar Reveil, A. Dupuis, Fr. Gerard and Francois Herincq's La Regne Vegetal: Flore Medicale, L. Guerin, Paris, 1864-1871. Oarweed, Laminaria digitata, Laminaire digitee. Handcoloured steel engraving by Oudet after a botanical illustration by Edouard Maubert from Pierre Oscar Reveil, A. Dupuis, Fr. Gerard and Francois Herincq's La Regne Vegetal: Flore Medicale, L. Guerin, Paris, 1864-1871. Date:

© Florilegius/Mary Evans

Eugene Turpin, inventor of turpinite, WW1

Eugene Turpin, French inventor and chemist who in 1884, first discovered melinite (picric acid) which produced the world's first explosive shells. He later developed turpinite, used by the French against the Germans in 1914. According to reports, it had devastating effects, although the claim that it petrified the Germans where they stood sounds somewhat far-fetched. Date: 1914

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

The Great Halifax (Nova Scotia) Explosion (4/4)

Disaster at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on 6th December 1917, when a French cargo ship, the SS Mont-Blanc caught fire in the harbour and drifted inland, whereupon it exploded (it was carrying a cargo of benzoil and picric acid), resulting in the death of approx. 2000 people and the utter devastation of a wide area. This card shows an actual view of the section of the harbour where the explosion occured with the SS Imo in the background. Date: 1917

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection