The Elbert County tribune., 1907-06-27
ONE GIANT CRACKER
TO CONTAIN 1877 500 POUNDS OF
GUN POWDER.
This Is What It Would Be If All the
Little Crackers of One Fourth
Were Put 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 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 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
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 arg uiueDlS Will nave 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
given moment it could be fired off,
winding up the whole business of
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
Gang 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 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 100 000, 900
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 num-
ber at 20,000,000. When one consid-
ers, however, that there are more than
$1,000, 900 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 60.000,0O0 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-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 firecrackers of the
United States there are 100000
ounces of gunpowder, which, of course.
means 1877 500 pounds. This has all
been easy. There is your firecracker.
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?
For many years there have baen
learned discussions concerning the
force of various grades of explosives.
The experts call 1t potential energy.
Some time ago two famous French
men-Roux and Sarrau-made a Sc
ries of experiments to determine the
exact extent of the potential energy