The St. Johns herald., 1895-04-25
VALUE OF DYNAMITE.
The Many Useful Purposes Which
 1t Serves.
Harmless and S1:c to 'afdle If Preeau- tions Are Tt,ya, -oth Heat and Percussion Needed % LIpIode
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 Dynamite is naGnc that, to the ma iority of people, is synoaynous with murder. ruin and anarchy. In reality t is very safe an,i u5cful commodity when properly handled, and will not explode except unler peculiar coldi- sions. When amatch i5 applied 1t will merely burn and sizzla 9 the ordinary red fire does, Says t,c-rroyidenccJour- nal, and nincty-rinc times out of hundred it may be thrown from the -op of blilling without doing any harm. To explode the substance there nust be the heat and colcussion com )ined, and this can hc obtained only by the use Of the dynamite cap CT fulmin- atc of mercury. discharged either by a lighted fuse or by the passage of an. electric current.
 The explosive substance itself is mass Of sawdust or lamp black soaked in nitro-glyccriGc Either of these two preparations Is called dynamite. There is another. the latest explosive yet in vcntcl, which is obtained by mixing the nitro-glycCrinc with gelatine, or any suitable glutinous substance. This is called forcitc. and has the. double advantage over dynamite of be- jag safe to handle and more effective in it's working. The dynamite is made up in sticks or cartridges, generally of half pound weight, ard held in hol- low pape r cylinders eight inchCs long and one and q quarter inches i2 diarne- ter. For shipment these sticks are put up 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 It is not brought hero. by Train, md. neither is ordinary gunpo,Fler, for that matter, because mono. df the rai1roaa5 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. It takes the team day and a half to make the trip, and tho selling parties pay the carriage. Of course thcre;is more or less of tho stuff smuggled in, here by train; sometimes it comes marked as soap or some equally harm less commodity. md the freight hand lers throw it around accordingly, and very frequently workmcn who are going short distance by train out of town to do some blasting. take enough with them in a valiSe to cause full-fledged modern railroad horror if it should go off.
 In the retail stores. where the, ,dyna- mite is for sale. there is no unusual precaution taken in the storing of it. It Is kept 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 De kSyna- mite caps at the other. TGc latter is the more dangerous of the two, and it is wlren they are broughts together that dynamite is most excellent thing to keep away from. is the cap and the cartridge that are Sc often con founded in the accounts. of explosions, etc. The prevailing ileas about Anar- chist Lingg's death is that he exploded g cartridge in his mouth; instead it was tine much smaller but just as dead ly cap.
 The explosive rctails for anywhere from twenty-five to sixty cents a pound, according to the pcrccntum of nitro-glycerine with the sawdust or lampblac1. The uses to which the. dynamite i5 pat ia everyday work ons the farms, lodges and highways arc many, for simple rock blasting, remov' ing powders, breaking up iron, clear ing tree stunps and shatteringice and frozen ground. It has been frequent, ly nsed at Eencdict pond, where it's eX- plosion under water, after drowning accident, has brought to the surface some body that could rot be secured with the dragging irons.
 If the charge is to be used under water or in break ing up ice the cap has to be made water-tight where the fuse enters before it is inserted in the cartridge by filling in the opening with tar or some kind of grease. Water does not injure the dynamite, but it must be kept from the fulmin- ate The powder Is injured, however, and its power greatly diminished by low temperature. High explosives freeze at a temperature of forty de- grees to forty-tlrce degrees. Fahrcn- -heit, and wAea il- thia condition will explode, if at all. with but little effect,
 So to use them l,i cold weather the workmen have so!r2 con ntrigance. for. warming tho cactrid~c, either by leaF-.. ing it iH Ga iron ,letttc, Winch: i3 inn, nersed in larrer one containing hot water, or D hurying t n sard heated to a tendfCrs .ure Of &2yel2ty asgrees. Carelesspe $ in this rar6 Of the work has on several ccc.l>iuns fesul ltedi in 'a premature ezrlosion aEl acci9ent, for while both eoncussion ;f41d>tIeat are generally necessary to produce any re- suit, either ono Of tic two agents alone may do so, as was the case ip the re- cent catastr6phc. ttSszER G5Sfler.
 There is one rule of safety that is all ways needed in blasting experiments. If the charge fails to explode after the fuse has been lighted or the current
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