Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1907-07-02
ONE GIANT CRACKER
70 CONTAIN 1s7,5oo POUNDS or
GUN POWDER.
This 10 What Il Would Be II All the
Little Crackers Of One Fourth
Were Put Together In
One Tube.

were Pue Together IN
One Tube.
There are-to be exact-13 ,04S, 537
boys between the ages of four and 20
years in the United States who are go
Ing TO celebrate the Glorious Fourth.
And this takes no account whatever
of the old boys, between the ages Of
20 and 80, with a few verging on the
edge of 30 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 a lot of noise and |
good many boys are going to get
their fingers and thumbs blown off |
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 hrecrackers that
will be fired of could be concentrated
into one colossal frecracker and that
all the boys in the United States could
be assembled around 1t and that at a
given moment 1t could be fired off,
winding up the whole business Of q
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 firecrackers there are in the
/ United States. One of the largest.
dealers says there are now 100000
| frecrackers 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 num-
Der at 10000 900. When one consid-
ers, however, that there are more than
10000, 900 boys In the country and that
the first estimate allows something
less than eight hrecrackers 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
tcle is conservatism and, therefore, a
compromise position will be taken and
the average OF two estimates will be
used, which places the number of Are
crackers at 10000 900.
4 Next. let us see how much gunpow.
der there is in these 10000, 900 fire.
crackers. The best authorities on this
subject say that in the average fire.
i cracker there is one-twentieth of an
Il once of gunpowder. This calculation
is based on the number of "lady-fire-
crackers, !" which are the smallest, on
up to the big cannon crackers, includ-
ing the tremendous Hunt" and Num-
Der Is, which contains two ounces of
explosives With this good start it is
simply a matter Of mathematics to
learn that in all the frecrackers of the
United States there are 100000
ounces OF gunpowder, which, OF course,
means 1880 pounds. This has all
been easy There is your frecracker.
All you have to do Is to get your boys
together. apply the match to the fuse,
wait second with bated breath and
then
But hold on! How about the dam
age?
q For many years there have been
learned discussions concerning the
force of various grades of explosives
The experts call it potential energy.
4 Some time. ago two famous French
mem Roux and Sarrau made Sc.
rles OF experiments to determine the
! exact extent of the potential energy
J. Of the most powerful explosives and
the results OF these experiments have
become the standards of the best In
formed experts on this subject. Il
was learned from these studies that
the average potential energy OF gun
powder is 480 foot-tons to the pound
You will observe, therefore, that there
would be a good deal of business
concentrated in gigantic frecracker
containing $500 pounds of gunpow
der. In this immense cracker there
Z would be stored 90,000,000 foot-tons Of
potential energy. Startling as are
! these figures, to the layman they mean
little. Let us compare them to some
object with which we are familiar.
Take the Flatiron building in New
York, for instance. Its weight is SO,
900 tons. Now, if there are 480 foot
: tons of potential energy In each pound
Of gunpowder, 1t would require 104
pounds of gunpowder to blow up {
building weighing $4,000 tons. This
amount Of gunpowder, is scientifically
applied. would do the job completed,
and raze the big structure from base
ment to roof. Such an explosive effor
as this, however, represents but {
small part OF the force in the supposi
: / t{onal ling nf syianf firppraekprs which