Year: 1865




Dslmonico's," or "This establishment use
Hunters Red Drop, but not Brandreth's pills,
or "This establishment prefers gin to cham
pagne," and SO on? BY and by, If the associ
ated managers keep on getting wealthy, VIZ
shall expect them to pay of the national debt
That will be easier than paying their own debts
and will make them famous forever.


New Explosive Material-The Chemfs.


try or tho Universe.


The accident at the Wyoming Hotel on Sun
day will probably prove to be the startling
announcement Of the aSyent of a new explo-
sive material. We have heard 80 much during
the war of torpedoes and other informal ma
chimes that the community came naturally to
the conclusion, on the first account, that the
mysterious box SO long neglected in the hotel
contained only one more Of the destructive
devices Of our enemies. But the statement Of
Leers that the box contained specimens of
" chemical oils" brought here with view to
make money, and with no evil purpose is in
all likelihood true. Leers brought the box
from Hamburg, which place he lett in June.
Some few months before that chemist of
Hamburg, Mr.. Alfred Nobel, announced the
discovery Of new blasting oil, which he
claimed would supersede gunpowder for all
ordinary explosive purposes. Nobel's COM
pound produces on explosion five times the
volume Of gas produced by an equal weight Of
gunpowder, and, as its inventor claims, has
thirteen times the power. It is chemical COM
pound of thirty-seven parts Of nitric acid with
one of glycerine. This nitro-glycerine is yel-
lowish oily fluid in appearance. Ii is not solu-
bic in water nor explosive by fire. It detonates
under certain circumstances We give fuller
account Of il in another column. The accident
in Greenwich street answers in all respects to
an explosion Of this material, especially in its
terrific power. It is evident that the explosive
material was fuid there was some evolution
of gas Just before the explosion, giving out an
odor that was mistaken for that Of hydrochloric
acid and when the box was let fall on the street
there was sufficient blow no doubt to explode
a detonating compound. Before the box was
carried out flames issued from it, and Nosels
nitro-glycerine will burn without exploding.


Nobel's compound, though without the i'm
mensc force OF chloride Of nitrogen, has been
found to possess great power in mining opera
tions. Had General Grant al the time the
mine was run under the rebel works at Peters
burg placed in it weight of this material
equal to the weight of gunpowder placed there
the explosion would have simulated an earth
quake. He would have shaken down every
fort that stood between the two armies and
every house in Petersburg, and would have
made himself felt throughout the territory then
held by the enemy. 1t Is difficult to soy what
might have become Of the two armies. This
chemical discovery is one more of the secrets
of nature secured by science; and il is still
safe TO say that we are only on the threshold
of discovery in this direction. Cunpowder,
nitro-glycerine and chloride OF nitrogen stand
perhaps rs only A B G in the ascending series
of explosive forces with which The great opera
tions of nature have been wrought by their
aid we may dimly guess at the powers whose
explosion piled up such ranges Of granite as
The Rocky Mountains the Andes and The Alps;
at the lesser powers that have torn open the
through which grea! rivers, as the
Hudson, flow TO the sea; that have "dusted
down the domes" of cities like Lisbon, and that
require such vast vent holes and safety
valves as Vesuvius and Etna. BY con-
siderng the earth rs one grand chemical
laboratory, with forces of unknown and
unimagined power operating within II ac-
cording to fixed laws, we can gain better
conception than in any other way Of the opera
tions OF nature that have most asionished the
world, that have been most regarded as i'm
penetrable mysteries, and that have been most
used by superstition to darken the human
mind.


From purely chemical standpoint also. we
can gain our only possible comprehension Of
the oldest OF traditons---the greatest puzzle of
philosophers Of every age--the story of chaos,
when the earth was ''without form and void"
Chemistry shows us how, by The laws of nature,
the same body may exist in solid, a fluid or q
gaseous form; how from solid il may be rari-
pansion that sounds almost fabulous be con-
denscd and restored to Its solid form. The
application Of this law Of condensation on
grand scale 10 matter expanded through space
in gaseous form might result in the formation
Of planeis-the chemical contact OF the vari-
ous gases in the evolution Of heat--and heat
in motion. So out of proportion are the gase-
Gus and solid forms Of given body that our
own earth might perhaps be so rariiied as to
ill the whole Of the space in our system. Sci
ence, while thus looking upon the visible uni
verse as the result of fixed laws, yet secs that
the power which made and fixed those laws Is
still incomprehensible; though il teaches MS to
regard that power with infinitely higher thought
than is possible to any blind faith We can
best understand the history Of the Universe
and Of the Earth by regarding the succession
of events as so many grand chemical changes,