Omaha daily bee., 1893-12-04
DYNAMITE.
Something About the stuff and Its Various

Something About the STUFF and Its Various
Uses.
Dynamite is o name that, with the majority
OF people, is synonymous with murder, ruin
and anarchy. - -eality it is a very safe and
useful commodity when properly handled,
and will not explode except under peculiar
conditions. When a match is applied 1t will
merely burn and siZzle as the ordinary red
fire does, and ninety-nine times out of "a
hundred it may be thrown from the top of a
building without doing any harm. To explode
the substance there must be the heat and
conclusion combined, and this can be OBJ
tanned only by the use of the dynamite cap
or illuminate of mercury, discharged either
by a lighted fuse or by the passage of an
electric current.
The explosive substance itself is a mass of
sawdust ,or lampblack soaked in nitro
glycerine. Either of these two preparations
Is called dynamite. There Is another, the
latest explosive yet invented, which is OBJ
tanned by mixing the nitro-glycerine with
gelatine or any suitable, glutlnouS substance.
This is called ~forcite, and has the double ad-
vantage over dynamite of being safe to
handle and more effective in its working.
The dynamite is made up in stick or car
tridges, generally of half a pound weight,
and held In hollow paper cylinders eight
inches long and one and q quarter inches in
diameter. For shipment these sticks are put
~ II bSitD Ouli,i puthtiSCo IIu tISh hNo VI
these packages are placed in a strong wooden
case, and in that bulk they are sent out from
the factories to the selling agents.
In the retail stores, where the dynamite is
for sale, there is no unusual precaution taken
in the storing OF 1T. 1t is kept under the
counter or on the shelves, very much the
same as common salt is; only the dealer is
very careful to keep his dynamite cartridges
at one end of the store and the dynamite
caps at the other. The latter is the more
a annnr0ps nf fhn t,-n and n 10 xulap fhau
are brought together that dynamite is "a
most excellent thing TO keep away from. 1t
is the cap and the cartridge that are so often
COMPOUNDED in the accounts OF explosions.
The prevailing idea about Anarchist Lingg's
death is that he exploded u cartridge in his
mouth instead it was the much smaller but
just as deadly cap.
The explosive retalls for anywhere from
% cents to TO cents q pound, according to
the per centum of n~itro-glycerine with the
sawdust or lampblack. The uses TO which
the dynamite is put in everyday work on the
farms, ledgts and highways are many, for
simple rock blasting, removing boulders,
breaking up iron, clearing tree stumps and
shattering ice and frozen ground.
If the charge is 10 be used under water or
in breaking up ice the cap has To be made
water tight where the fuse enters before it
is inserted i'll the cartridge by filling in the
opening with tar or some kind of grease.
Water does not injurc the dynamite, but 1t
must be kept from the illuminate. The
powder is injured, however, and It's power
greatly diminished, by u low tempera ture.
High explosives freeze at a temperature of
forty to forty-three degrees Fahrenheit, and
when in this condition will explode, If at all,
with but little effect.
So to use them in cold weather the work
mel have some contrivance for warming the
cartridge, either by leaving IL in an IRON ket-
tie which Is immersed In IA larger one COP
tanning hot water or by burying it in sand
heated TO a temperature of 70 degrees. Care
lessuess in this part of the work has on
several occasions resulted in a premature ex-
plosion and accident, for while both concus-
sion and heat are generally necessary to pro-
duce any result, either one Of the two agents
alone NAV do so. as was the case in The recent
catastrophe at Santander.
There is one rule of safety that is always
needed in blasting experiments. If the
charge fails to explode after the fuse has
been lig hted or the current turned on, the
operator will never dig 1t out to find the
reason why-it is too apt 10 act like the
tirecracker that the small boy picks up after
he thinks it has gone of, or like the toy pis-
tol that isn't loaded. When the first at
tempt Is unsuccessful II second charge is
placed in close proximity TO the first. and
when that goes they both go.