Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1866-04-26

building in the place is unchanged. Two
clerks of the Panama Railroad were killed,
as well as Is natives or Jamaicans, en-
ployed on the wharf or in the freight house
1t is also believed that o small gang OF
native laborers were killed The total loss
of life is about so. The damage is stated
at million of dollars.
Col. Otto Burnstenbender was arrested in
New York, on the 10Th, on the complaint OF
Fire Marshal Baker, for shipping a GUAM
tity of nitro gil cerine to Californla-the
same that exploded there, about 200 pounds
in all-without labelling the packages CIR in
forming the captain of the vessel in which
it was shipped, of The nature of the article.
The Mayor issued an order directing the
Fire Marshalto search all places in the city
wherein he had reason to believe that any
nitro glycerine was stored and to remove
it to some safe place. Mr.. Baker has al
ready discovered about 800 pounds of the
glycerine in a storehouse up town, and also
a large quantity on board vessel in the
harbor. 1t will all be removed to some
place where its explosion cannot cause any
serious consequences.
From the New York Herald, April IS
According to information taken here, in
New York, the superintendent of New
York mining company had sent, some weeks
ago, to San Francisco. by the Pacific Mail
Company, several boxes of nitro ycerine,
weighing over 200 pounds, imported from
the factory of Mr.. Alfred Nobel, of Ham
burg, Germany.
1t was intended to sell this oil to mining
companies, the immense exploding power
of the new chemical compound offering
great advantages, not only in the saving OF
labor of drill holes, but also in freight, be-
cause one pound of this blasting oil does
the same destructive work as 12to Is pounds
of common blasting gun-powder
The blood stirs if we think that the 200
pounds sent by the Pacific mail steamer had
exploded during the sea voyage, tearing to
pieces and burying in the waves the seven
or eight hundred passengers on board.
And could not the accident which took place
at The freight Office of Wells & Fargo's COM
pany in San Francisco, without any appa-
rent cause, have happened quite as well on
board of the steamer which carried the
mysterious and dangerous freight?
In the small city of Bochum, in one of the
coal districts of Westphalia, Germany, a
storekeeper kept for sale to the miners some
stock of Nobels nitro glycerine. One morn
ing miner came to buy two pounds, and
brought with him tin can to carry it, the
glass bottles in which it was sold being in
convenient for him. The clerk opened the
bottles, and poured the oil into the tin can !;
but, 10, in the same moment 1t exploded,
tearing TO pieces the poor clerk, killing the
miner and destroying the store. The Prus-
sian government appointed commission to
investigate the matter, and it was found
that the tin can had contained turpentine
oil, and that turpentine oil in contact with
nitro-glycerine possibly would occasion a
sudden explosion. Singularly enough, the
accident happened on the same day that the
Wyoming hotel accident took place in this
city.
Near Glatz, in the Prussian province of
Silesia, a laborer who was occupied in blast
ing away some rocks on the railroad track
came very early in the morning Jan. 6,
1867 to his work. He was to pour oil in
his drill hole, but found it had frozen over
night-the oil having the peculiar quality
of freezing six degrees above the water
freezing point. The oil was in q gutta
petcha flask, and little being left, the un-
fortunate working man cut open the flask
and took Ratchet TO cut off piece of the
frozen oil. The moment the hatchet touched
the frozen lump it exploded, killing in
stantly the poor man, whose limbs were
scattered in fragments, and found two miles
distant from the place where the accident
happened.
We call, therefore, the attention of the
competent authorities to these facts and
hope the law will interfere to regulate the
transport and storage of this powerful de-
structivs compound. 1t would be the surest
to adopt simply the Prussian law regulating
the transportation of nitro glycerine oil on
public roads, because this law is the work
of some of the best scientific authorities of
Europe, the committee having been com
posed of three professors of chemistry. three
directors of Insurance companies, and three
freight superintendent of railroads.