The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1907-06-29
ONE GIANT CRACKER
TO CONTAIN 1850 POUNDS OF
GUN POWDER.
This Is What II Would Be if All the
Little Crackers of One Fourth
Were Put Together in
One Tube.

There are-tO be eXact-13, 04S,537
sboys between the ages of four and 20
years in the United States who are 60
ing to celebrate the Glorious Fourth.
And this takes no account whatever
of the old boys, between the ages OF
20 and so, with a few verging on the
edge of 90 for good measure. These
boys are going to celebrate in the
good old-fashioned way with firecrack-
'ers and toy pistols and and
.skyrockets and nigger-chasers. They
are going to make a lot of noise and
a good many boys are going to get
their fingers and thumbs blown off
and their faces filed with gunpowder
and their ears trimmed. But that
doesn't make any difference; they are
going to celebrate nevertheless. Now,
there is no use dragging out statistics
to show how many boys were killed
and manned and sent to the hospital
last Fourth of July. You will waste
your ink in writing down the figures
.and your breath in talking about them,
but you will not stop the small boy,
nor the big boy, nor the middle-aged
boy, nor the old boy from celebrating.
All your arguments will have no avail.
Suppose all the firecrackers that
will be fired off could be concentrated
into one colossal firecracker and that
all the boys in the United States could
be assembled around it and that at a
given moment it could be fired OFF,
winding up the whole business OF a
swoop. There would be one mighty
shock to the nerves of old
women and shaky old men. There
would be one big sizz and n big
bang that would be heard all the way
around the world, and then all would
be over; everybody would have cele-
gbrated; the same amount of money
would have been spent and quiet and
Deace would be resumed. Now, let's
see how it can be figured out.
First of all, one must ascertain how
many firecrackers there are in the
UNITED States. One of the largest
dealers says there are now 100000, 900
; frecrackers in this country waiting to
tbe exploded on the Fourth OF July
Another large dealer says this esti
mate is too high and places the mum
gber at 20, 600, 900. When one consid'
,ers, however, that there are more thai
$4,000, 900 boys in the country and that
the first estimate allows something
less than eight firecrackers for eac1
hoy. one must admit that the figures
ARE, perhaps, not so far out of the way
But one of the chief aims of this ar
aicle is conservatism, and, therefore,
compromise position will be taken and
the average of two estimates will be
used, which places the number of fire
crackers at 6 $4,000, 600.
Next. let us see how much gunpow
der there is in these 60, 0 0 900 fire
crackers. The best authorities on thi:
subject say that in the average fire
cracker there is o~ne-twentieth of az
ounce of gunpowder. This calculation
is based on the number of "lady-fire
crackers" which are the smallest, OF
u1p to the big cannon crackers, includ
ang the tremendous Hunt" and Mum
Der IS, which contains two ounces o
explosives. With this good start it l
simply a matter of mathematics t
learn that in all the ~irecraCkers OF tn
United States there are 100000
ounces of gunpowder, which, OF course
mean 1877 1900 pounds. This has al
been easy. There is your 1recrackeI
All you have to do is to get your boy
together, apply the match to the fuse
wait a second with bated breath an
then
But hold OF! How about the dam
age?
For many years there have bee
learned discussions concerning tn
force of various grades of explosives
The experts call it potential energ,
Some time ago two famous French
men-Roux and Sarrau-made a 81
ries of experiments to determine tn
exact extent OF the potential energ