Litchfield enquirer., 1877-10-18
MI yames H Osbsrp gfas ] sotH Ats most seven acres of land 3 bont two miles lwest of the village to Geo Fl. Osborn for s4ooA TFTTTTl Y
 -At inc school Smsetiug If Saturday

west or the VlitaB6 to bCo. =. ''sin for ssooN T<TIT IT
 -N hy -ehsolsm smsetisx sf sAsaraay night, the v..te laying tax io raise $25O was rescinded, the committees was author ized, however. to raise the money to pay off the existing debt, and two assessors were appointed to prepare district list. The.mesting Mas then adjourned AaAfort-5i night The, appointment of assessors eass vas lt made with a view to voluntary assess sment, avoiding the expense of assessing and collecting tax There is no doubt that the dlstrlet is sOl.abls.1 fer dI'e tieIt of about $2OO which must be paid by taxation '~1 -''''' s'' ''7' ''1- '-0 ''
 Whether this, district ought t6 be sad ] dled with debt for educating its schol- iars while tue town furnishes other dis tricts their schools without taxation is very different matter. This dis trict enumerates 146 scholars, who draw from the State $250. each, or s365 in ail, into the town treasury, i for educational purposes. Besides this 1865 drawn from the State, the inhab- .itants of this district pay about Sl, 900 in- to the town treasury. by way of town tax- alton, for educational purposes. That, under such circumstances. we should be allowed from the town only money to run a winter school, and that the expense ot the summer term should be thrown oni' the taxpayers of the district does not seem to. us fair play. This is the more evident when we look at the approP'iralsss 7 ations to other districts in the town. The Marsh District enumerates but ten schol- ars with an average attendance of' less than ysix.r Gilbert District enumerates but 13 with an attendance of less than 1o' East Litchfeld enumerates only twelve scholars; Mount Tom and Head Quarters, but IT, each. Yet each of these little districts receives $18O while the Center has but $500, and the North St. District, 'but s225 In other words less than ohe fourth of the money drawn by our schoi- ars from the state and paid by onr tax payers for education, is allowed us TOT the support of our own school, and we have to be taxed still further to pay the expenses of the entire snmmer term!l 5H
 -Mr. Palmerton. of WestVille. has been blasting with dynamite during the
 past week, at Echo Farm and at Sherln
 Baldwins farm north of the village.
 On Thursday noon some thirty people
 were assembled at Echo Farm to see three heavy blasts which were exploded at that time. The charges are prepared as mo- ticed in description we reprinted some time since from the New Haven Palia- dium. A hole is dug as far as possible under the rock, into which are thrust a humber of cartridges Tproportioned to the size of the rock to be moved. The cartridges used contain. some half and
 some three quarters. of pound ofgdypa mite. each, ana into one of them is thrusts piece of fuse with cap at the end. Al few shogelsful of fmud are thrown into the hole, the fuse is fired, and the rock is thrown completely ont of the ground in several pieces, and'each piece greatly shivered apl cracked by the exx' plosion. The smaller pieces of rock are cracked by boring shallow holes just deep enough to hold the cartridge, or by simply laying the cartridge on the rock, ,and covering it with clay or mud so as to ex- clude the air. By the three large blasts at Echo Farm (the largest containing about 8 lbs of dynamite), three large boulders.
 we should judge from 80 to- I4OtonsL apiece in weight. were blown out of ground and
 shattered so that by a few subsequent smaller charges they could be- easily re- duced to @ manageable size. An attempt was made to blow up q tree. but MT. | Palmerton was doubtful of it's success, and though good deal of earth was .thrown out from under it the tree was not I'blown down. In the course of about two l days large number of rocks were blast
 ed on MT. Starr's land, and on Monday,
 MT. Palmerton began operations on sher-
 riff Baldwin's farm. In the afternoon
 large crowd assembled to see the the ex-
 plosion of several blasts, the largest of
 which was under boulder estimated to
 weigh 30 tons. mostly. underground, and
 which had already been somewhat crack
 ed by gunpowder. Under this rock was
 placed 16 lbs of dynamite and the result
 was decided success, several portions of
 the rock being blown out altogether, and the rest very much shattered. The smaller 1rocks were many of them blown entirely
 out of thelr beds, and scattered about in
 pieces of various sizes. Several surface
 blasts were exploded with excellent results
 and the large pieces were thus cracked into
 Smaller ones. @ett,h 9e'at h's ... 'NT i.. Ig Six hours work done on Mir. Ildwln E
 farm on Monday effected more probably
 than could have been done in a month by
 the same number of men employed, with
 gunpowder. In dynamite blasting, too.
 the harder the rock, the more effectually
 it is shattered. The cost of the dynamite
 is 90 cents a pound; in appearance it re. T sembles light brown sugar, and, when sci ' on fire. It burns slowly without exploding,
 Mir. -Palmerton claims that it is more
 safe article to use than gunpoSder, being
 a great improvement in that respect uou
 nitro. glycerine. ,-,.~. .,., ,.'., ..,' ,''.
 As means of clearing of boulders from farms there can be nothing eqaal-to It \ The expense, of cracking them, to man lageable size, cannot be one tenth that o
 blasting with gnnpowder, and had it beel {, employed before. its use on Echo Farn sa alone would have saved thousands of dol lars. e E s1s,a1 B as's's e-,sll adi .,, .o ? The crowd who were presenttos see tn, :, blasts were naturally much surprised a ] the effectiveness ofthe new explosive A a IF l:nkA,>k k,,sa er~~,,,. oL