The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-09
Alfred B. Nobel Prizes to
 Be Distributed Tomorrow

The inclusion of Edison and Tesla
 in the list of the 1915 recipients of
 Alfred B. Nobel prizes adds to the \ American interest in the fund be- queathed by the Swedish scientist who
 was the inventor of dynamite The l 1915 distribution of Nobel prizes will
 take place tomorrow, the tenth of 1 December having been chosen for the 1 annual ceremony because it comnlem- orates the anniversary of the death l of Nobel at San Remo, Italy, Dec. 10, 1896.
 Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the found
 CT of the fund for the bestowaI of prizes upon men eminent in science, literature and the advancement of
 peace, was born in Stockholm, swe-
 den, in 1833- He was thirty years old
 when, in 1863, he was granted a pat l ent for the manufacture of an exp1o- I sive composed of nitrog1ycerine and ordinary blasting powder This was
 the first practical application of nitro kglycerfne, a violent explosive invented 1 by Sobrero in 1S47, and which he pro-
 duced by adding successive small quantities of glycerine to a mixture
 of nitric and su1phuric acids. It was
 Nobel's desire to produce an exp1o-
 sive for use in blasting which should I be more powerful and less dangerous than those in use.
 In 1884 Nobel found that his ex- | p1OSlVG5 COulQ De SS6T Of11e by the 1n- I itiat1ve detonation of Illuminating n1a-
 teria1s, and in 1857 he conceived the idea, of reducing it's uncertainty and danger by mixing it with some solid 1 and inert Substance. Thus he pro- duced dynamite, a word which origin
 ated in Germany and has it's root in tsDynamis," meaning power" ! Nobel found a, si1iceous infhsoria1 l earth in Germany which was well l suited to his purpose, since it absorbed l three times it's weight of nitro-g1ycer- I inc without becoming more than damp to the touch To the mixture of earth and nftrog1ycerine was added a little alkaline material to neutra1ize any acid that might be set free by
 the nitrog1ycerfne-
 l Dynamite soon became popular, and its use has spread ali over the world I It was not long, however. until the
 nihilists. anarchists and revoIut1onista 1 discovered that dynamite was well suited to, their destructive uses, and a ! new word, "dyna1nftard," was coined for these fanatics.
 Perhaps the first example of the I terrible uses to which dynamite could l be put was afforded by the explosion 1 on the North German Lloyd dock at
 Bremerha in 1s78- A German
 named Thompaon, Thomas or Thorn-
 assin consigned ease of dynamite to
 Bremerhaven. to be shipped to Amer | lea. on tho steamship MoseL With ii i he sent d cIoclwork machine, set to i explode the dynamite in eight days I The case was billed as containing val
 .1aa71e articles, and was heavily i'm I sured- For some reason the dyna- 1 mite exploded while it was on the f dock, where hundreds of passengers
 and their friends were gathered More fthan eighty persons were killed and
 nearly 200 seriously injured Thomp-
 son. who had planned to leave the 1 ship at SouthaInptpn, and then col 1ect insurance on his supposed val lrl1a.bIes, was among those injured. He
 connmit tied suicide some days later, but before dying confessed that If was his purpose to send the ship to the bottom with the object of collect ling the pa1try insurance.
 It was at first believed that Thomp- Ison, Thomas or Thonassin was a na- 1 tive Anaerican,f and there was great I indignation among the Germans The I press became SC abusive of Afneri-
 cans, and popular feeling ran so high that 1t was unsafe for a citizen of the
 United States to appear in some of the lstreets of Berlin. Then it was dis
 covered that the criminal. although an American citizen, was Of German birth land blood, and the antf-American feeling speedily subsided.