Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-08-11
NITRO-GLYCERINE.
Hoao 1T is Manufactured-The Care
and Watchtulness that 1t Requires
-Ro,U the Dangerous Erplo-
siue IS Handled to En-
sure Safety

About 100 yards west of the Hoosac
tunnel is to be seen board fence sur
rounding about ten acres of ground,
with the announcement: "Nitro-gly-
cerine works. Dangerous no visitors
admitted" A drive leading between
two rows of buildings brings the wish
tor to the acid house, well ventilated
building, $50 feet long. Here are
eleven stills, each seven feet long and
two feet in diameter Under these
light, slow fire burns, which is careful
ly attended to, for the temperature
must be kept moderate. In each of
these stills is placed charge of nitrate
of soda and sulphuric acid The stone
ware pipe conducts the gases, at tenn
perature of about $50 degrees Faren-
heit from each still into stone receiver
or condenser, or rather series of four
condensers connected by stoneware
pipes, ranged on platform three feet
above the ground. Into three of these
sulphuric acid is poured, and the fourth
is empty The nitrous vapor passes
from still to the first condenser, where
portion of it, forming, as it condens-
es, nitric acid, is taken up by the sui
phuric acid the remainder passes on to
the second, third and fourth condens-
ers, though very small portion is left
to pass into the last, which only re-
quires to be emptied once month. 1t
takes about twenty-four hours for the
still to complete the conversion of it's
contents into nitric acid, at the end of
which time the resultant mixture, about
600 pounds, is run off into carboys,
twelve of these being filled from three
stills. About 100 carboys are gener-
orally kept in stock, as the acid does
not spoil when kept closed. These car
boys are then emptied into soapstone
tank having a capacity of eighteen car
boys, and an iron pipe, connected with
the main leading from the blowers in
the engine house, is inserted into the
acid causing current of air to agitate
it, so as to remove the nitrous fumes,
mix it thoroughly so as to bring it to
uniform strength. Formerly this was
effected by removing the acid into a
glass vessel containing about forty gal
Ions, and it required boiling for hours /;
the mode now practiced occupies only
five minutes, and the risk of fracture of
glass vessel in sand bath is avoid
ed. The acid is then carried into a
converting room, about one hundred
feet long and well lighted, where it is
divided among one hundred and six
teen stone pitchers, arranged in nine
wooden troughs placed in the centre
and at the end of the room, and these
troughs are now filled with ice-cold
water, or ice and salt, so as to rise
within four inches of the top of the jar.
On shelves above the troughs are ar
ranged glass jars, one to each stone
pitcher Into each of these glass jars
chemically pure glycerine is poured,
and this, by means of a siphon, with a
rubber tube attached, about two feet
long, falls, drop by drop, into the cor
responding pitcher of mixed sulphuric
and nitric acids. Immediately below
the shelf on which the glyceriDe jar
stands is two and one-fourth inch
iron pipe, which brings a current of
cold air from the receivers connected
with the two blowers above mentioned.
The current of air is distributed to each
jar, while the acid and glycerine are
mixed by a rubber pipe, to which is at
tached glass tube l6 inches long and
with a one-fourth inch bore. During
the hour and half or two hours that
the glycerine takes to run off into the
pitchers, the greatest care and closest
attention is requisite. The three men
whose duty it is to attend to the mix
ing process have each row of pitchers
to watch, walking the whole time up
and down beside them, with thermom-
eter, in hand, and, as the nitrous fumes
rise from the forming nitro-glycerine,
they stir the mixture with the glass
tube before ment oned, in a pitcher
that may be giving out too violent
fumes. Sometimes this is caused by
the glycerine running a little freely,
which fires the mixture, wastes the
! glycerine, forming oxolic acid, and de.