The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1913-08-02
Stronger Than Dynamite, Yet
Less Dangerous.
TROTOL THE NAME OF IT.
Only One Way to Explode It, as Shown
by Remarkable Tests Made by Gov
eminent and Du Ponts-lnvented by
New York National Guardsman In
the Postal Service.

what has been pronounced by some
military men the safest high power
explosive the world has yet seen. an
explosive equal to so per cent dyna-
mite, the strongest dynamite made
has been produced by lieutenant Of
the New York national guard after
three years work. He will give it to
the United States government. al
though it is said that half dozen ma
tons would pay from 100000 up for
the formula.
Lieutenant Harold Chase Woodward
OF the Twenty-second engineers, ma
tional guard, New York, is the in
ventor of trotOl. the new explosive
He is employed in the New York post
office at Il branch station. Three years
ago n brother came across an old vol
ume that had been presented to Ger
man officials at the time of the Franco
Frussian war. In the book were 1000
formulas for high explosives, mainly
anonymous The Germans had sim
ply shelyed the book. perhaps discour-
aged by the number of recipes and
the impossibility of testing them ALL
Hit Upon It by Chance.
Woodward tried five formulas at
random and found them all either
worthless or inferior to explosives now
in use. He tried sixth at random
and found it extraordinarily safe and
good. but rather weak as compared
with the best dynamite But from it
be developed trotol
Trotol can be exploded only by full
inmate of mercury, the substance
used to explode dynamite 1t cannot
be set off by any shock, however
great. In test at Fort Wadsworth
trotol was packed into a twelve inch
shell, and the shell was fired at armoi
plate 1000 yards away. The shell
struck the armor plate while going at
rate of 2.7JO feet a second. but the
trotol inside remained unexploded in
spite of the terrific conclusion
Six ounces of trotol, it is said. will
do the explosive work of twelve
ounces of dynamite. Dynamite de
terforates in water or on the water
and under certain atmospheric condi-
tons. Trotol can be soaked in water
for years and be as good as ever K
looks like wet brown sugar and is
made up in sticks like dynamite
Trotol can be carried wet or dry and
the illuminate Of mercury, which must
be kept yards away from dynamite
lest Il premature explosion result may
come as close as six inches to trotol
without danger. Like dynamite, trotol
cannot be exploded by ignition.
The Governments Experiments.
TrOtol has a longer name. 1t Is de-
rived from a coal tar byproduct which
has been subjected to step up mira
tion-that is reduced to dregs. After
Mr.. Woodward had worked over it for
a year the United States government
began experiments which lasted for
swo years and which concluded at
Peekskill. y. Y, n short time ago. No
| possible tests remain to be made of
the new explosive. If there are fur
Their ones they will have to be espe-
cially invented for it.
Tests We're conducted at Fort Wada,
worth and Peekskill. and the Du Pont
de Nemours Powder company has ca
hausted its tests on trotol without find
| ing a flaw in it. The secret formula
| Is possessed in its entirety only by
| Lieutenant Woodward. Government
engineers have parts of the secret, and
the Du Pont people have parts.
Lieutenant Woodward declares that
| he will give the full secret of trotol
| only to Uncle Sam and will take no
money for it.