The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1884-06-20
Some Strange Explosives.

| Some Strange Explosives.
'.Flour looks innocent enough, (" an
overseer remarked, while watching the
removni of some barrels of flour and
other grain from large warehouse.
That depends upon how it is
cooked" the reporter suggested
just so. 1t is dangerous in that
way; but Twas thinking of it as an exc
| plosive. Just look across the room.
You see, when the suns RAYS come in,
that the air is loaded with fine grain
dust. and if you were provided with
microscopic eyes you would see your
self fairly surrounded with small atoms
of grain of all kinds. Now, suppose
| Won take dried ear of corn and fire it.
1t burns very slowly, and the chances
are that it will GO out. She'll it, or
take the kernels of, and it burns much
quicker. Suppose, now, we grind the
corn. it will burn quicker still, say in a
minute; but if you pulverize it, reduce
it to powder or dust. and ignite it, it
goes off like flash, and has great .ex-
| pansive power. That is just the case
here. If the room becomes. over
charged with dust and is ignited, of it
goes, blowing the house to pieces.
Zone of the most striking cases &C.
CURED several years ago in Minneapolis
when the Washburn Mill caught. Those
who knew anything about it just got
out of the way as quick as they could;
powder wouldn't have sent them any
faster. Blow upP Well, 1 should
rather think she did. The walls of the
mill were solid stone six feet thick,
and when the explosion came they were
just like paper, and the roof, made of
sheet iron, was blown so high from one
mill that it landed more than two miles
from the spot where it went up. OF
course it was helped by the wind, but
the force exerted was shown. Men
have been blown out through windows,
hurled through the air, and the walls
of building completely demolished
by mans lighting a pipe in a big
grain house. .--...-,. -.-
ga curious accident once happened
in Scotland in Il large house. A man
walked in with cigar in his mouth,
and in a second the room seemed TO be
filled with fire and a terrible roar, but
minute later it cleared Off With the
exception OF a singeing, not q person
was hurt, but every one of the four
walls was Hat on the ground, and the
roof had been lifted bodily and dropped
two hundred feet away. In such cases
there must be fire first. The dust
burns, and powerful heat is created,
and then follows the terrific expansive
force that nothing can withstand. The
explosion in Barclay street several
years ago may be accounted for in this
way. In the manufacture of candy,
sugar and starch are used in great
quantities. Their dust accumulated
and when lighted might easily develop
power enough to hurl building to
atoms"
Has the explosive power of differ
ent dusts ever been determined?n
"Yes," the flour man replied: "Prof
Peck, the chemist, has made some ex-
periments that demonstrate the
enormous power of sawdust, various
fiours, starch and grains of all kinds
In one of the experiments he took
three-quarters of an ounce of starch,
and, by raising it as dust in the air,
ignited it in compartment intended to
represent room. When exploded it
threw box weighing six pounds twen-
ty feet in the air. You can Judge your
self of the power of the material.
Half an ounce of starch ignited
in the same way was shown by the
professor to lift the cover of box, and
a heavy man standing on it. three
inches"
Gone OF the most dangerous mater
ials is the wheat-dust in -four mills.
When burned it goes off like a flash.
One of the first movements in making
flour is to rattle the wheat, and pass a
heavy draught ut the same time to car
~ off the highly -inflammable dust. Yet,
despite all care, the air. often becomes
perfectly loaded with it. Prof. Peck
has shown what flour would do by tax
ing a box with a capacity of Two cubic
feet and placing in it little flour, the
light of lamp entering through hole
in one corner, and the muzzle of bel
lows through the other. The cover of
the box was nailed on, and a man took
his place on it. The professor then
of -four within Immediately filled the
worked the bellows, and the small amount
air in the box as dust, the fac-simile of
dust laden mill being produced. The
flour Immediately gnited from the
lamp, and in second the cover was
blown off, and the man lifted several
inches into the air, while blaze of fire
hurst out from all sides. A number of
interesting experiments were performed
by the same gentleman, showing that
in our large mills and manufactures
where dust was likely to be formed
there lurked power as dreaded rs dy-
Mantle.
''Peck states that one pound of car
bon and q of oxygen, when they COM
bine to produce carbonic acid. will
evolve heat sufficient, if applied through
a perfect heat engine, to lift nearly six
hundred tons ten feet into the air.
Then he assumes that if forty per cent.
of flour is carbon, it would require q
pounds TO accomplish this result
why can't an engine be made to run
by dust power?'' -....,.. ,r-r...
Perhaps that is what Kelly is work
ing at, or the same principle; but you
would need, according to the authority
quoted. an engine from which there was
no radiation or loss of heat. Perhaps
some day it may be accomplished.
Some years ago an old fellow in Boston
created a great excitement by pretend
ing that he had machine that was fifty
times as powerful as any known power,
and a hundred timos as cheap. His
machine was arranged SO that after it
once starred it kept going by successive
explosions of bran-dust that was blown
into chamber by a bellows, and ignited
by gas get, the expansive force acting
on a piston. 1t was a big scheme, and