Arizona republican., 1898-05-19

gerous to handle, in the ordinary sense of the word at least. remember once taking a quantity of dynamite out in the woods near my iron mine up the state and trying to explode 1t by such means as might enter into any acci- dent likely to occur in general han ding. We did it as an object lesson for the men as much as for anything else. We burned it, threw big rocks at it and tried other ways of exploding it, but we couldn't make it go off. We use lots of it for blasting purposes, but we never have had an accident Of course, it produces frightfu effects when exploded in conjunction with some other high explosive. Nitro-gly- cerine, on the other hand, is to be feared at all times. I have heard of a blacksmith who placed one drop of 1t on an anvil and then struck it a hard blow. It blew out the side of the shop and made big hole under where the anvil had stood, and the black smith did not even neeo burial. But even this is not to be compared to 1od1de of nitrogen. Its explosive power is equal to 4,000 feet a second. That is, if you laid a train of it 1000 feet long and exploded one end of the train, the explosion would be trans m1tted to the other end of the train in one second. I don't know but that under these conditions the cumulative character of the effect would cause the other end of the train to become ig- nited even sooner than in one second. The speed is greater than the accred- lted velocity of sound, which travels at the rate of 400 feet second.
 Tn fact there are explosives of such tremendous power that no one dares make but a very small quantity at a time, and doubt if they have ever been seen outside of laboratories. I have made them, a drop at a. time. But, o, how unstable they are! Ac- tually, I have made explosives of this nature which have gone of when I yelled at them I simply placed a small drop on a table and shouted at it. It exploded instantly. You see, the thing is in state Of very delicate l equilibrium It IS a question depend ing on surrounding conditions as to which 1t will do-remain a liquid or turn into gas. When, as in the case just mentioned, this balance is about equal, 1t takes very little to incline it toward a gaseous form, so that even | the sound of the voice will cause the change. A violent fit of coughing will produce the effect and SO would a heavy weight dropped on the floor. 1 Speaking of this explosive reminds me of how got rid of some ministers who once insisted on boring me in my laboratory, when I had some impor- tant experiments on hand. I treated them .courteously as long as I could but they grew more interested as the day wore on, and seemed to have nc intention of going home. Finally, as a last resort, I told them I 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. I dc not suppose they knew much of the nature and appearance of high explo- sives, for when I placed a number ol drops of the material in various parts Of the room, so as to scatter any acci- dental explosions, they seemed not td notice it. At last, when they got crowding almost between me and the work bench, very carelessly pushed
 
 was worse than I had intended it tc be. It nearly shattered the window glass and ,jostled things around gener- ally. The ministers seemed scared hafi to death, and from the way they held their ears you would have supposed some one had bumped their heads to, gether. When told them how it had happened, and discussed the possibil. 1 ity of more accidents taking place they said 1t really was quite wonderful but they guessed they had better b< going. urged them to stay and sex moro fireworks, but they all had very important engagements, and hurried M.
 But to return to tho subject in hand, the science of explosives is @ very interesting one, and If some way is found to utilize the tremendDue forces which are engendered when the chemicals are properly combined and exploded, we may yet come to re- spect them more than We do at pres ent. Our knowledge of the very high explosives dates back but a few years. The present war spirit may provoke enough activity in the line of explosives to cause their development not mercy 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 ministers is in the same line with one he has played several times on obnoxious callers. For instance, reporter from a paper whose methods did not entire ly agree with the inventors ideas of fair dealing, recently called to inter- view him. Not wishing to be rude to him, MT. Edison asked him if he ob- jected to his continuing his experi- ments while he talked. Of course the newspaper man was delighted. It really added the spice of human in terest to the affair. He conducted his caller into little room where he had a certain form of oxygen apparatus which charges the surrounding atmos- phere in a manner very unpleasant fa ono nof need fo if MT Esdicry, did