The San Francisco call., 1898-05-15

1 When, as in the case just mentioned, | this balance is about equal, it takes very little to incline it toward a gas- eous form, so that even the sound of the voice will cause the change. A violent fit of coughing will produce the 1 effect, and so would heavy weight dropped on the floor.
 | Speaking of this explosive reminds me of how I got rid of some ministers who once insisted on boring me in my 1 laboratory, when I had some impor- tant experiments on hand. l treated them courteously as long as I could, but they grew more interested as the day wore on, and seemed to have no | intention of going home. Finally, as a last resort, told them l was going to make some highly explosive ma terial. This made them only the more interested. and they got in my way as much as they possibly could. l do not suppose they knew much of the nature and appearance of high explosives, for when I placed a number of drops of the material in various parts of the room. so as to scatter any accidental explo- sions, they seemed not to notice it.
 At last, when they got crowding af- most between me and the workbench, very carelessly pushed a board off onto the floor. Well, 1t was worse than I had intended 1t to be. It nearly shat l tered the window glass and jostled | things around generally. The minis teers seemed scared half to death, and | from the way they held their ears you would have supposed some one had bumped their heads together. When told them how it had happened, and | discussed the possibility of more acci- | dents taking place, they said 1t really was quite wonderful, but they guessed they had better be going. I urged them | to stay and see more fireworks, but they all had very important engage ments and hurried off.
 But to return to the subject in hand, the science of explosives is a very in- teresting one, and if some way is found to utilize the tremendous forces which are engendered when the chemicals are properly combined and exploded we may yet come to respect them more than we do at present Our knowledge of the very high explosives dates back but few years.
 The present war spirit may provoke enough activity in the line Of explo- sives to cause their development not | merely as agents of destruction but, what is better, In industrial lines. Here. then, is a chance for budding inventors.
 MT. Edison's joke on the minist is | in the same line with one he has played several times on obnoxious callers. For instance, reporter from paper whose methods do not entirely agree with the inventors ideas of fair dealing recently called to interview him. Not wishing to be rude to him, MT. Edison asked him if he objected to his continuing his ex- periments while he talked. Of course the newspaper man was delighted. It really added the spice of human inter- l est to the affair.
 He conducted his caller into a little room where he had a certain form of oxygen apparatus which charges the surrounding atmosphere in a manner very unpleasant to one not used to it. | MT. Edison did ind iy,f 1o 1ooc
 put his visitor could not ask questions TOT choking and coughing. He shortly excused himself In most embarrassed way and left without asking ques- ton; all of which was rendered still more ludicrous by the apparently of fended manner with which the inventor regarded the reporters actions. Prob ably that reporter does not even yet Know trick was played on him. but Ahe IS not likely to revisit the laboratory.