Read Ebook: Dynamite Stories and Some Interesting Facts About Explosives by Maxim Hudson

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Ebook has 421 lines and 24145 words, and 9 pages

ent off. We looked at one another in amazement. It takes time to get thoroughly scared; but, as soon as we realized the full danger through which we had passed, we were numb with fright. Even now, when I think of it, I have a creepy feeling.

We had made half a dozen tests before this, and all of the shells had exploded except one. This was the second in which the safety-chamber had proved effectual. Had it failed this time, and had the Maximite charge exploded in the huge shell, we should all have been blown to ribbons.

I rushed back to the machine-shop, where I found that a certain employee--one of those careful, painstaking souls who are always attending voluntarily to the odds and ends of work left undone by others, had discovered the wires detached from the switch. With no memory of the rule that the switch should always be left open, he forthwith connected the wires, and then, to make his culpable industry complete, he closed the switch, thus making the electric connection with the loaded shell; and, doubtless, he was comforted by a sense of duty well done. His duties in my services certainly were done, for they ended right then and there.

SOME LIVELY COTTON WASTE

I once had an Italian laborer as man-of-all-work, who was rather a good-looking fellow. An exquisite mustache and a wealth of curly hair were sources of great pride and joy to him. One day he was engaged in burning up some rubbish, and to start a fire, took what he supposed to be a bunch of dry cotton waste, but which was in fact guncotton. Holding in one hand the wad of guncotton the size of his head, he applied a match to it. There was a quick, bright flash, and hair and mustache had disappeared. He did not mind the burn so much, but his anxiety about his appearance in the eyes of his sweetheart was pathetic.

SAVING TIME

When I had completed at my works, Maxim, New Jersey, a certain frame building of generous proportions, of which I was quite proud, and in which I had installed various processes and apparatus for making smokeless gunpowder, I told one of my assistants to have a gauge put on a large bell-drier that stood in a corner, which was employed for the time being to extract the moisture from about forty pounds of guncotton. He gave instructions to a machinist to do the job, telling him to remove the guncotton first.

As it was necessary for the machinist merely to bore a hole through the bell-drier and screw in the connecting pipe, he thought it a useless expenditure of time and effort to remove the guncotton. After he had bored the hole nearly through, he took a punch and hammer to knock out the remaining burr. A spark ignited the guncotton, and that bell-drier went right up through the roof and turned a somersault, striking about a hundred feet away. The walls of the building on the end where the explosion occurred were thrown outward, and the roof came down.

My assistant and another young man were in the building with the machinist at the time. Although dazed by the shock, they immediately rushed to the rescue of the poor fellow, who lay prostrate under a pile of burning d?bris. Not much could be done for the unfortunate, and he died soon afterward.

This instance is a type of many that result from inadequate precaution by workmen in the manufacture of explosives.

THE BROKEN SCALE

One of the closest calls that I ever had in my life occurred in my laboratory at Maxim, New Jersey, in the early nineties.

Two of my assistants and myself were weighing out small batches of fulminate of mercury from a ten-pound jar. There were on the bench as many as half-a-dozen small squares of glass, each with its little pile of fulminate upon it. There was also a five-pound bottle of nitroglycerin standing on the bench. A little way removed, and under the bench, was a fifty-pound can of gelatin dynamite.

We were proceeding very cautiously, when all at once the scoop toppled, and an iron weight fell, striking within an eighth of an inch of one of the pieces of glass on which was fulminate of mercury. After a second of suspense, we stared at one another in amazement, wondering whether or not we were still in the land of the living.

An investigation into the cause of the accident revealed the fact that one of the young men employed in the laboratory had broken off an arm of the scales--one of the supports of the scoop--the day before, and, with criminal reticence, had made absolutely no mention of the fact to anyone. Had that weight fallen upon the fulminate, it must have dealt death to all of us.

THE SINGULAR GOOD FORTUNE OF A GENTLE ENGLISHMAN

It so happened that during a tour of inspection seven of us were together, going over the works. On entering the guncotton dry-house, I noticed a strong odor of nitric acid.

"Out of here, quick!" I cried. "The place is going to blow up!"

There were perhaps a hundred pounds of dry guncotton in the room at the time, spread out in pans. As was afterward learned, the foreman, being in a hurry for the guncotton, had turned live steam into the pipes instead of circulating hot water through them as instructed.

We were barely out of the room when the guncotton burned with a flash, wrecking the building and setting fire to the fragments. I was just congratulating myself that no one had been injured by the explosion, when it was discovered that one of the party, an Englishman, the even tenor of whose way nothing could accelerate or disturb, and who feared nothing, had not quite made up his mind in time to get out of the room before the flash came. On seeing him emerge at last from the zone of destruction, I was horror-struck, for apparently every hair had been burned from his head and face, while shreds of skin hung from his hands and cheeks and brow.

Nevertheless, the Englishman's usual phlegmatic manner was wholly unruffled, and he spoke in his conventional voice, untinged with emotion:

"Mr. Maxim, it isn't often that one has an opportunity under such circumstances of witnessing exactly what occurs."

THE MATCH AT THE PEEP-HOLE

A certain patented device is used for the recovery of solvents in the manufacture of smokeless gunpowder. An acquaintance of mine conceived the idea that it would be an excellent thing to employ this same device for the recovery of alcohol used in the manufacture of felt hats. He conducted experiments successfully, having the hats placed in a chamber through which hot air was circulated, and from which it was afterwards conveyed to a refrigerating compartment to condense out the alcohol, then reheated and returned to the drying chamber.

Ultimately, this ingenious person so won the confidence of a company of hat manufacturers that they determined to build the apparatus at their factory, and to give it a thorough trial to test its practicability. Things progressed very well indeed, until there came a day when a leak was discovered in some part of the apparatus, and a plumber was called in to make the necessary repairs. This artisan's first act was to open a peep-hole, light a match, and peer into the drying chamber.

There was much instantaneity in the activities that followed. Fourteen persons were killed outright, including the plumber and his assistant, and the building was completely wrecked.

THE FLASK OF LIQUOR

Some years ago, in Austria, a worker in one of the mines found a flask nearly full of a liquor that he took to be whisky. Delighted with this treasure trove, he raised the flask to his lips, and gulped down a portion of the contents. Another workman, standing by, snatched the flask, and, in his turn, quaffed the liquor greedily.

That liquid in the flask was nitroglycerin, which, taken internally, is one of the most virulent of poisons. Both of these workmen were stone dead in less time than it has taken to tell this story of their fatal folly.

IMPERTINENCE PUNISHED

During the experiments at Sandy Hook which preceded the adoption of Maximite by the United States Government, a young lieutenant just out of West Point was placed in charge of the loading, although he knew absolutely nothing about explosives. He tried hard, however, to make up for his deficient knowledge by the most exacting, impertinent and foolish requirements.

I rebelled, but was told by the commanding officer that, while he fully appreciated the situation, he must, as a matter of duty, support his subordinate officer, and he advised me to return to my task in looking after the loading of the Maximite, under the direction of the impudent youngster. This I did.

The lieutenant, now having his own way, heated some Maximite very hot and filled a projectile with it through the false base plug provided for the purpose. There were two holes in the false base plug, through one of which the Maximite was poured into the projectile, while the other served as a vent. Being uncertain whether or not the projectile was filled solidly, the officer took a round stick, and rammed it down one of the holes, while he looked into the other. The result was that his eyes were filled and his face covered with the hot liquid Maximite, putting him out of commission for a week.

My sympathy for the fellow was quite overbalanced by my gratification.

CURIOSITY'S UPLIFT

Shortly after the Russo-Japanese war, there drifted in upon the Chinese shore one of the huge floating mines constructed by the Russians, containing about five hundred pounds of guncotton. This strange object greatly excited the curiosity of the Chinese, who flocked in large numbers to view it. While half a thousand of them were crowded in close upon the mine, marveling over the mystery of this flotsam, one of their number began to investigate it with a hammer, and, hitting the fuze a heavy blow, exploded the mine.

An American witnessed the event from a distance. Wondering what all the excitement was about, he had started toward the crowd with the intention of making an investigation on his own account, when, of a sudden, there was a flash and shock. The horde of Chinamen that had been clustered about the mine vanished in a cloud of dust. Fragments of heads, arms and legs rocketed skyward in the form of an inverted cone. The head of a Chinaman, severed from the trunk, went hurtling through the air, with the queue out-streaming behind, like a comet coming to perihelion. It passed just over the horrified American and struck the ground some distance beyond him.

PROUD EVEN UNTO DEATH

The inventor was so fortunate as to have a "pull" with the congressman from his district, and through this influence he succeeded in getting Government permission for a test of his piece at Sandy Hook. In the meantime he had strengthened the powder chamber of his gun by driving on several steel hoops, in order to use larger charges of powder. So confident was he of the safety of his system of throwing high explosives, that, when the officers at Sandy Hook insisted on his retiring with them behind the bomb-proof during the firing of the piece, he balked and insisted that he be permitted to stand by his gun while firing it, as he had done in his previous experiments on Staten Island. He was not in the least impressed with any possibility of danger by reason of the fact that he was now using a much larger powder charge.

The officers, however, were obdurate. They told him bluntly that he must either stand behind the bomb-proof, or his gun would not be tested.

He replied:

"Very well, if Uncle Sam does not want my gun enough to let me test it in my own way, then I will sell it to foreign governments, and make Uncle Sam feel very sick and sorry."

On his return with his gun to Staten Island, he gathered together a party of neighbors and some representatives of the press, to witness the experiments that Uncle Sam had missed. When the gun was ready to fire, the little knot of spectators frayed out, and peeped from cover. There was but one shot, which was not a shot, but an explosion.

After waiting for some time for the inventor to come down and explain, the spectators went home, disappointed.

THE DOG THAT ATE DYNAMITE

In the early nineties I was experimenting with a new fulminate compound as a detonator for fuzes in high explosive projectiles. The compound consisted of fulminate of mercury with gelatinated guncotton and nitroglycerin.

One of my workmen had a pup of a miscellaneous breed, which would eat anything under the sun that he could masticate, and when anything was thrown into his mouth not too big for him to bolt, he swallowed it without the formality of chewing it.

One day his master gave him about half a pound of this fulminate compound. Another of the workmen put some metallic sodium and dry fulminate into a gelatin capsule, stuck this into the end of a quintuple dynamite cap, wrapped the whole thing in a piece of meat, and, calling the dog out into the field, made him stand up and "speak" for it. Then he dropped it into the dog's throat and it was swallowed at a gulp.

The next instant, the latter workman's own dog, which he prized very highly, came upon the scene and entered into a very brisk wrestling-bout with the dog that had been charged. Before he could call him away, there was a terrific explosion, and both dogs vanished from this vale of tears.

INSECURE SECURITY

Before the discovery by Nobel that the absorption of nitroglycerin by infusorial earth rendered it much less sensitive to shock, numerous attempts were made to bring it into general use, in liquid form, as a blasting agent, the most notable of which was during the digging of the Hoosac Tunnel. But, owing to its highly sensitive character, fatalities were numerous; while, furthermore, the necessity for perfect purity in order to render nitroglycerin stable--that is to say, to make it keep well--was not at first recognized, and many disasters were the result from explosions due to its decomposition.

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