The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-11-28
NOT AFRAID OF DYNAMITE.
Woman Owns and Operates Nitro
glycerin Factory. y.

probably the only woman in the world
who owns and manages a nitroglycerin
and dynamite factory. She buys all
tends to the sales and credits, to billing,
shipping and banking; makes frequent
visits to the factories and does a BUSH
ness that aggregates nearly thous-
and dollars a month.
The commercial agencies rate Mrs.
Afford at $4,000 at her own request,
but $4,000 would be closer estimate
of the value of her properties. .
In addition to her factories she owns
and manages large oil lease, controls
a dozen or more village properties and
acres of wild land that she proposes to
convert into sheep ranch.
Mrs. Affords factories are in the for
est, two miles west of Eldred. The IL
buildings are scattered over five acres.
Nitroglycerin factories are always in
Isolated spots, SO that in case they blow
up the loss of life and property will be
small. The buildings are detached Cor
the same reason. They are all of hem
lock, implanted and cheaply built.
Mrs. Afford explained that brick
buildings would look prettier, but
We're not proof against an explosion,
and that it would cost more to replace
them. The owner of a nitroglycerin
never knows beforehand when it Is go
ing to blow up or afterward why 1t
did blow up: there is never anyone to
explain how 1t happened.
The most interesting thing was the
agitator-a round tank lined with lead
and with coils of lead pipe about its
walls. Outside was a wooden tank
that acted as a water Jacket. In the
agitator are two paddles that make
100 revolutions minute. Nitroglycerine
is nitric and sulphuric acid mixed with
glycerin. The mixing can only be done
at a low temperature.
In two hours two men can make 1000
pounds of nitroglycerine. 1t is as
simple as churning. 1t requires 5000
pounds of glycerine to make thous-
and-pound run"
When the acids are being put into the
agitator the odor cuts the lungs of
tenderfoot like a knife.
The machinery is tested before the
mixing, which, once under way, must
not be stopped until the work is COM
pleted. Attached to the agitator is
crank which the employees turn if
belt breaks or a pulley slips, for if the
agitation stops the thing goes up.
For the first five minutes after mix
ing begins the foreman stands watch
in hand. Then he grabs a thermometer
and drops it in through hole in the
agitator cover. The operation is repeat
ed every few minutes. On the accuracy
of the thermometer depends the lives Of
the employees.
While holding his watch the fore
man keeps his eye on the glass plate
in the agitator cover, through which
he watches the mixing.
Only cool men have any business
making nitroglycerine.
When the mixing is done the liquid
is the color of milk. 1t is drawn off
into a wooden tank in which there is
is inches of cold later. AS the milky
fluid strikes the water red fumes light
the surface and there is a sound like
the Kissing Of geese.
The ntroglycerine settles to the bot
tom and is drawn off into smaller tanks,
churned, washed with warm water,
weighed and poured into eight-quart
cans made of heavy lead tin, then car
ried to the storage magazines nearby.
Pure nitroglycerine is almost color
less and an eight-quart can of it
weighs rs pounds.
kind to nitroglycerine they can live
with it a long time. One day she saw
one of her workmen tossingg cans of
the explosive to another workman, who
was placing them in a magazine. Both
men were discharged on the spot.
oglycerine-makers earn from 800
to $3.50 month. When an accident &C.
ours there are always a dozen appli-
cants for the jobs left by the annihila-
ton Of the old employees. 1t Is an in
dustry that has left a red trail of blood
on every page of the history of the oil
regions.
Making dynamite is not so dangerous
as making nitroglycerine. Dynamite is
nitroglycerine cushioned in absorbents
so that it can be handled with less dan
ger
In the absorbent stock house there
are bags Of nitrate Of soda, bins filled
with wood pulp fine as bolted meal,
sacks Of kiesslguhr and mounds of peat
moss. 1t resembles a country grist-
mill.
The absorbents are taken to the dyna-
mite house, in which there are numer-
Gus boxes and a long trough. The
boxes hold about 500 pounds. The alb
nitroglycerine poured in. The COM
pound. after being stirred. resembles
common putty. 1t is shoveled into hods
and dumped into the trough, from
which the filters force it into paper
cartridges dipped in paraffin wax to
render them waterproof. They vary
from an inch to three inches In diam
eter and from eight to Is inches in
length.
Packed in boxes that hold SO pounds
and marked Dangerous" the dyna-
mite is ready for shipment. All rail-
IOhuS carly ny d. oOuble
class rates. but no railroad will trans
port nitroglycerine at any price. 1t is
transported from the magazine to he
oil wells in wagons fitted with spe-
cial padded cell boxes, in which the
cans fit snugly.
Mrs. Affords factory has a capacity
of 5000 pounds of nitroglycerine and
5000 pounds of dynamite a day The
paper cartridges are made on the prem
ises by a machine. Nitroglycerine sells
for 81 a quart; 25 years ago 1T brought
$12 quart, but the profit is still fair.
Mrs. Afford has furnished one firm in
the Wyoming salt district two car
loads of dynamite month for several
years. The power canals at Niagara
were blasted out with powder from her
factory and the Buffalo harbor i'm
provements required many tons of her
manufacture.
Mrs. Afford has been studying ex-
plosives since 1883, when her husband,
through the reverses of a friend he
aided financially, found himself a
bankrupt with only one asset-a secret
formula for the manufacture of dyna-
mite For a time he purchased the