The Globe-republican., 1907-06-27
ONE GIANT CRACKER
TO CONTAIN 1s7,5oo POUNDS OF
GUN POWDER.
This is What It Would Be If All the
Little Crackers Of One Fourth
Were Put Together in
One Tube.

lnere dT6-LO De eAdCl-lo, o,U4o,uof
boys 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 80, with few verging on the
edge Of 80 for good measure These
boys are going to celebrate in the
good old-fashioned way with firecrack.
ers and toy pistols and cannons and
skyrockets and nigger-chasers. They
are going to make lot of noise and
good many boys are going to get
their fingers and thumbs blown on
and their faces filled 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. sup the whole business of a
Fourth -of-July celebration at one fell
swoop. There would be one mighty
shock to the nerves of nervous old
women and shaky old men. There
would be one big sizz and one big
bang that would be heard all the way
around the world, and then all would
be over; everybody would have cele-
brated; the same amount of money
would have been spent and quiet and
peace would be resumed. Now, let's
see how 1t can be figured out.
First of all, one must ascertain how
many frecrackers there are in the
United States. One of the largest
dealers says there are now 100,000,000
firecrackers in this country waiting to
be exploded on the Fourth of July.
Another large dealer says this esti-
mate is too high and places the mum
ber at 2O,00OOO0. When one consid-
ers, however, that there are more than
100000 boys in the country and that
the first estimate allows something
less than eight firecrackers for each
boy, one must admit that the figures
are, perhaps, not so far out of the way.
But one of the chief aims of this ar
ticle 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 60,000,000.
Next, let us see how much gunpow.
der there Is in these 60000,000 fire
crackers. The best authorities on this
subject say that in the average fire
cracker there is one.twentieth Of an
ounce of gunpowder. This calculation
| is based on the number Of "lady-tire
| crackers" which, are the smallest, on
J up to the big cannon crackers, iDclnd
| ing the tremendous Hunt" and Mum
Der IS, which contains two ounces oi
explosives. With this good start 1t Il
simply matter of mathematics tt
learn that In all the firecrackers Of the
United States there are 100000
ounces of gunpowder, which, of course
means $1,000 pounds This has al
been easy. There is your firecracker
All you have to do is to get your boy'
together, apply the match to the fuse
wait a second with bated breath ant
them
But hold on How about the dam
| age?
For many years there have beel
| learned discussions concerning tn
force Of various grades Of explosives
The experts call it potential energy
Some time ago two famous French
men Roux and Sarrau- made So
ries Of experiments to determine tn
exact extent Of the potential energ,