MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Tizer]

What's this and what is it made from?

[PanBiker]

It looks like bamboo, is it for liquid or maybe black powder?

[Steeplejerk]

Poison darts ?

[PanBiker]

Good call I reckon.

[Tizer]

Poison darts, no. Bamboo, yes. Black powder, no but you're getting close, Panbiker.

[Gloria]

Is it for containing spices?

[Stanley]

Snuff?

[Tizer]

Spices, no. Snuff, no.

[Big Kev]

Is it a rainstick? Made from dried cactus and filled with small pebbles?

[Gloria]

Tea?

[Stanley]

For carrying a recreational drug?

[Tizer]

No to all of those. Look back and you'll see my response early on when Panbiker suggested black powder: Black powder, no but you're getting close, Panbiker.

[Big Kev]

Old firework?

[Tizer]

Also close but the bamboo container wasn't a firework. Clue: miners used it. Panbiker might claim he got it right when he suggested it was to hold black powder but it wasn't holding the explosive charge. Think what the miner would need.

[Big Kev]

A lamp?

[Tizer]

No.

[Gloria]

McIntyre powder for use against lung disease?

[Big Kev]

An explosive device, like a stick of dynamite?

[Stanley]

For holding percussion caps or similar early detonators.

[Cathy]

Saltpetra

[Stanley]

Fulminate of Mercury?

[Tizer]

None of those but Stanley is closest to the right answer!

[Stanley]

Extra finely ground black priming powder.

[Tizer]

Stanley and Panbiker are so close that they can be joint winners! The bamboo tube and cork were used to hold and keep safe and dry the `squibs', thin paper tubes containing gunpowder used as fuses for blasting in the mine. The one shown was a type used by miners in the Forest of Dean.

[Stanley]

Cathy was on the right track also with saltpetre.....