Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1894-01-11
VALUE OF DYNAMITE.
The Many Useful Purposes Which
It Serves.
uasmiess and Safe to Handle ~ Precar-
lions Are Taken - Both Heat and
Percussion Needed 60 Explode
It-Methods Of Manufacture.

It-Methods of Man ufacture.
Dynamite is a name that, TO the ma
,ority Of people, is synonymous with
murder. ruin and anarchy. In reality
IL is very safe and useful commodity
when properly handled, and will not
explode except under peculiar condi-
tions. When match is applied IL will
merely burn and sizzle as the ordinary
red fire does, says the Providence Jour
nal, and ninety-nine times out of
hundred IL may be thrown from the
top OF building without doing any
harm. To explode the substance there
must be the heat and conclusion com
bined, and this can be obtained only by
the use Of the dynamite cap or fulmin-
ate of mercury, discharged either by
lighted fuse or by the passage of an
electric current.
The explosive substance itself Is
mass of sawdust or lamp black soaked
in nitro-glycerinc. Either of these two
preparations is called dynamite. There
is another, the latest explosive yet in
vented, which is obtained by mixing
the nitro-glycerine with gelatine, or
any suitable glutinous substance.
| This is called forcite, and has the
| double advantage over dynamite of be-
ing safe TO handle and more effective
in its working. The dynamite is made
up in sticks or cartridges, generally Of
half pound weight, and held in hol-
low pape r cylinders eight inches long
and one and quarter inches in diane
ter For shipment these sticks are put
mp first in ten-pound packages, and
then five OF these packages are placed
in strong wooden case, and in that
| bulk they are sent out from the facto-
ries to the selling agents. 1t is not
brought here by train, and neither is
ordinary gunpowder, for that matter,
because none of the railroads which
run freight lines in Providence will
carry any kind of explosives. But the
dynamite Is brought as far as Acton,
! Mass, In the freight cars, and then
carried from there in four-horse teams
II takes the team day and half to
make the trip, and the selling parties
pay the carriage. OF course there is
more or less of the stuff struggled in
here by train; sometimes it comes
marked as soap or some equally harm
less commodity, and the freight hand
lcrs throw il around accordingly, and
very frequently workmen who are going
a short distance by train out of town to
do some blasting take enough with
them in valise to cause full-tledged
modern railroad horror IL it should
go or.
| Ia the retail stores, where the dyna-
mite Is for sale. there is no unusual
prccaution taken in the storing of 1t.
1t is kept under the counter or on the
shelves, very much the same as com
mon salt is; only the dealer is very
careful to keep his dynamite cartridges
at one end of the store and the dyna-
mite caps at the other. The latter Is
the more dangerous of the two, and it
Is when they are brought together
that dynamite is a most excellent
thing to keep away from. 1t is the cup
land the cartridge that are so often con
founded in the accounts of explosions,
etc. The prevailing idea about Anar-
chist Linggs death is that he exploded
cartridge in his mouth; instead it
was the much smaller but Just as dead
~ cap.
The explosive retails for anywhere
from twenty-five 10 sixty cents II
pound, according to the percentum of
nitro-glycerine with the sawdust or
llumpblack The uses to which the
dynamite is put in everyday work on
e the farms, lodges and highways arc
many, for simple rock blasting, remov'
y ing powders, breaking up iron, clear
: ing tree stumps and SCATTERING ice and
! frozen ground. 1t has been frequent
-. g,N &c ~
, plosion under water, after drowning
!, accident, has brought to the surface
n some body that could not be secured
a with the dragging irons.
II the charge is to be used undel
water or in break ing up ice the cal
has to be made water-tight where thu
fuse enters before II is inserted in thu
cartridge by filling in the opening
with tar or some kind of grease
II Water does not injure the dynamite
IA but il must be kept from the fulmin
, ate The powder is injured, however
a and its power greatly diminished by
- low temperature. High explosive
II freeze at u temperature of forty de
# grees to forty-three degrees, Fahren
Ia heit. aud when in this condition vii
ar explode, II at all, with but little effect
20 So to use them in cold weather tn
"a worlImcn have some contrivance 70
N warming the cartridge, either by leaN
Ia ing II in an iron kettle which is in
II mersed in n larger one containing he
water, or by burying it in sand heate
to temperature of seventy degree
Carelessness in this part of the wor
has on several occasions resulted in
premature explosion and accident, fc
while both conclusion and heat M
generally necessary to produce any II
., suit, either one of the two agents alon
may do so, as was the case in the n
cent catastrophe at Santander.
~ There is one rule of safety that Is a
'o ways needed in blasting experiment
II the charge fails to explode after Il
70 fuse has been lighted or the currei
10 turned on the operator will never d
~ Il out to find the reason why-it is q
-, apt to act like the firecracker that u
small boy picks up after he thinks
In has gone off, or like the toy pistol tn
,,r isn't loaded. When the first attem
in Is unsuccessful, a second charge
NO placed in close proximity TO the frs
M and when that goes they both 60
nj Japanese Lacquer.
'ut A first-class piece of japanese Ia
-, ,,.,,,.i, ,on ecarcalv he scratch