Daily globe., 1883-06-17
NITRO.GLYCERINE.
Some Singular Stories Concerning Its Ire
mendOus Explosive Force.
TNeIy VorLr

Some Singular Stories Concerning Its Tre-
mendOus Explosive Force.
New York Special
One of my friends in this conference
had been an eminent contractor, and
something was said about the Irish
making dynamite war on England, on
which this gentleman remarked: "I
have had a good deal to do with nitro
glycerine. did some important Gov
eminent work, such as the making of
breakwaters, where the rock was
broug ht to me in large pieces, and we
had to blow it up, and used nitro
glycerine for that purpose. It is the
most destructive thing you can conceive
OF. \ little cartridge of it as thick as
the end of musket barrel, dropped to
the bottom of an oil well, will shatter
the most tremendous primitive rock.
You can take piece of it half as big
as your hand and it will blow a rock as
big as this room in which we are sitting
all to flinders. [ can tell you of very
singular property about tnitro-glycerine
On one occasion an ordinance was
passed III a certain city where was do
ing public work imposing d penalty of
$500 for bringing nitro-glycerine within
the city limits. l had to have it, so L
told my foreman to put that glycerine
under my table, at which sat writing.
As it is exploded by concession, you
may imagine that fer few days [ was
a little skittish. There was enough
glycerine there concealed by that table
cloth to have blown up half d dozen
blocks of that city. People used to
come lntO'my room, sit q few minutes,
and suddenly one or more would put
their hands to their head and complain
OF headache. Not being subject to
headaches myself, [ could not under
stand it. | suppose that from one-half
to three-fOurths of all my visitors who
sat with me more than ten minutes
would have those headaches One day
a man came into my Office who had been
blowing out oil-wells in Pennsylvania.
He sat there fifteen minutes and sud
denly said; Why, [ have a headache;
you must have nitro-glycerine here
oh, no. said [, with a smile. Yes
said he, this is nitro-glycerine head
ache. [ think [ smell it, too He be-
gan to sniff his nose. There is very
slight odor, hardly perceptible, in the
stuff, and it looks like a box Of lard
With this my visitor lifted the table
cloth and said: Have you got it there?'
pointing to the boxes. Yes said I,
with laugh, that is nitro-glycerine.'
Well, said he, it gives the headache to
q large proportion of people who sit
near it.
did you have any accident?" said [.
NO, [ did not; but a fellow-contrac-
tor, who was doing some work in Can
ada, was driven out Of that country by
an accident that happened to him in a
very simple way. He had been using
nitro-glycerine, and it is supposed that
some of it got spilled on the tire of q
wagon, which was left unmoved for
some time, One day hehitched a horse
to the wagon and started to drive it off,
and then that small amount of stuff adj
herring to the tire blew UP as the wheels
moved, and really destroyed two-thirds
Of that little town. The people around
were killed, the hotel was blown to
pieces, two OF three blocks were devas-
tated, and my associate was unable to
do any contracting work in Canada.
He hastily sold what he left there to a
native, and crossed the river and came
away, otherwise they would have sued
him for all the damage done to that
town."