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

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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.

The first attempt to introduce nitroglycerin as a blasting agent into the United States was made by a young German student. He called the stuff "glonoin oil." He brought over a few hundred pounds in cans on the steamer with him, most of which he disposed of during his sojourn in the States. But his venture was not a financial success, and he was obliged, when he returned to Europe, to leave an unpaid board bill at a New York hotel where he had been staying. He had left one fifty-pound can of glonoin oil, which he let the hotel proprietor hold as security, but which, however, later developments proved to be insecurity.

The glonoin oil occupied a place of honor in one corner of the barroom for several months after the departure of the German student. Decomposition having set in, yellow nitrous fumes began to emerge from the receptacle, the malevolent odor of which was soon noticed by one of the guests, who called the landlord's attention to the fact. Highly disgusted, the landlord picked up the can, walked to the front door, and threw it into the middle of the street. The act resulted in a miniature earthquake, which shattered the walls on both sides of the street, broke window-glass over a square mile, and landed the hotel proprietor in the hospital.

THE LOADED CHINAMAN

During the Russo-Japanese war a certain officer of the Czar, who was an impatient, overbearing person and a great martinet, had a Chinese servant whom he treated with the utmost harshness for the smallest delinquency, or for none at all. One of his favorite methods of inflicting punishment for offenses was to order the Chinaman to leave his presence, and, as the fellow went, to give him a hard kick.

The Chinaman aired his grievances one day to a Japanese spy, whom he took to be a brother Chinaman. The Jap suggested padding the seat of the Chinaman's trousers to prevent further contusions, and this was done, the padding being furnished by the Jap. A rubber hot-water bag was filled with absorbent cotton containing all the nitroglycerin it would hold. A small exploding device armed with percussion caps was placed in the bag so that the nitroglycerin would be exploded by any sudden blow. The unfortunate Chinaman was wholly unaware of the nature of the padding.

At the next meeting of the Russian with his servant, the poor Oriental inadvertently spilled some tea upon the officer's new uniform. Thereupon the enraged master proceeded to dismiss the Chinaman from his presence in the usual way, but with somewhat more precipitation.

One of the officer's legs was blown off, one arm was crushed to pulp, four ribs were broken, and it was more than a day before he was restored to consciousness. When he did come to, he found himself a prisoner in a Japanese hospital, having been left behind by the retreating Russians.

As to the Chinaman himself, poor fellow, he never knew that he had been loaded.

LIVING BOMBS

An American reporter, who was with the Japanese during the Manchurian campaign, told me the following story:

Column after column of Japanese had assaulted a Russian position, the capture of which was exceedingly desirable. Line after line of the brave little fellows was swept down by the unerring gun-fire of the Russians, but each time a few Japanese would scale the works, and go over them, only to be slain by the Russians inside.

There was a lull for a short space, and the reporter thought, as doubtless did the Russians, that the Japanese had given up the task, when, suddenly, a troop of perhaps a hundred Japanese rushed forward, in a widely scattered line. Onward they flew toward the Russian position, and, as they went up, there was a blaze of the Russian rifles, and half the Japanese column disappeared with a flash and a tremendous report.... They had exploded!

Each of them had been loaded with an infernal machine, hung across his breast and over his shoulders, so that should but a few of them reach the enemy's position, they could explode themselves and hurl death and destruction all around them.

The Russians were so astounded, so paralyzed by the spectacle and by the unexpectedness of it, that they ceased firing, while the remaining living bombs scaled the ramparts and leaped in among their enemies, who instantly vacated the place, flying like rats from a sinking ship.

SHIPS THAT PASSED IN THE NIGHT

During the Russo-Japanese conflict, more than one of the Czar's warships disappeared in a night cruise without leaving a trace.

I got the following story somewhat indirectly, and for that reason cannot vouch for its truth. It was told to my informant by a Japanese officer while in rather a more communicative mood than is usual for an officer of the Mikado.

This Japanese official at the time commanded a torpedo-boat. In the flotilla of which his vessel was one there was a torpedo-boat that carried neither guns nor torpedoes, for she had been stripped of all armament and every mechanical device not absolutely essential to her navigation, in order to lighten her. And then she was loaded with dynamite to her full capacity.

The Japanese officer declared that when a volunteer crew of half a dozen men was called for to navigate her, ten times the required number offered themselves, although they well knew that they were going to certain death.

The flotilla was steaming slowly through the darkness one night, not far from Port Arthur, when there suddenly loomed up ahead the huge bulk of a Russian warship. At once the dynamite-laden craft threw herself directly in front of the oncoming leviathan.

Without the pause of an instant, the doomed Japanese crew sprung the huge mine, when a vast cone of flame shot up, reddening the night, carrying with it high into the air, decks, superstructure and guns of the warship. The warship's magazines, fired simultaneously by the dynamite blast, aided the complete demolition. The returning torrent of guns and wreckage plunged into the sea.

All was over, and it was dark again.

A WILD PROJECTILE

In spite of every precaution at Government proving grounds, big projectiles do sometimes glance out of the butts or heaps of earth into which they are fired, or from the face of armorplates against which they are directed, and finally land in most unexpected quarters.

One day, while a thirteen-inch gun was being tested at Indian Head, a projectile glanced out of the butt, mounted high into the air, and then came down through the roof of a building, where there were engaged a number of officers and book-keepers. The projectile passed down through the floor, close to the desk of one of the officers, and buried itself in the earth.

As the projectile contained no explosive charge, the damage was not great, but the scare that was thrown into the occupants of that room was of considerable magnitude.

THE BOMB AND THE TRAIN

One of the most anxious moments that I ever experienced was during some experiments made by me at Maxim in throwing aerial torpedoes from a four-inch cannon.

These torpedoes were about four feet in length, charged with a very powerful high explosive, and armed with a detonating fuze. We had successfully fired several of them into a sand-butt where they exploded with great violence. There were six of them: five had been fired and the sixth was loaded into the gun, ready to be discharged, when a passenger train on the Jersey Central Railroad hove in sight, and was passing us about a thousand feet away as the gun was fired.

We had no idea of there being any danger to the train, as its position was well away from the line of fire, and each of the preceding projectiles had behaved so well. But, this time, the torpedo glanced from the sand-butt, and went after that train. We stood paralyzed with dread as we saw it pass over the train, close to the roof of a car, and strike in the swamp just beyond it, perhaps a couple of hundred feet behind the track. An inverted cone of black earth shot up, followed by a dull sound.

In imagination we had witnessed a frightful catastrophe, the wreck of a passenger train, with fearful loss of life, and all the horror of our own resultant predicament. Now that the danger was past, the even tenor of our way did take on a new relish. What objects we are, after all, of the mercy of chance!

THE MISSING VESSEL

At the same place, I was one day on the point of beginning an experiment, for which I required a small quantity of dry guncotton. Before going for it to the guncotton dry-house, I instituted a search for a suitable vessel in which to carry it. For some mysterious reason I had much difficulty in finding anything just adapted to my purpose, and the hunt delayed me a matter of five minutes or more. Finally, however, I secured a satisfactory vessel, and hurried out of the door in the direction of the dry-house.... I had covered less than a rod of the distance when the dry-house blew up.

In this instance, surely, a benign Providence interfered to save me from destruction.

THE DRUNKEN MESSENGER

Some years ago, soon after I had built my experimental laboratory near Lake Hopatcong, a dear old friend came to visit me. He had seen hard times in the interval that had separated us, and had suffered from both business reverses and ill health since the days when he and I were chums. He was plunged in the depths of pessimism, while I was optimistic. He was in the throes of abject discouragement. Though I made him many offers of assistance in varied forms, none of them seemed to cheer him in the least.

When I knew him in our youth, he had been one of the bravest men that ever lived; now, he appeared to have lost all his former courage. Often, however, he made the remark that he was minded to make an end of everything, since life offered him nothing worth while. I frequently importuned him against the folly of contemplating suicide.

It came about that one day I was in need of fulminate of mercury. As this material cannot be taken upon a train or sent by express, it was necessary to go for it with horse and wagon. Both my assistants and myself were just then too busy to be spared from the work in hand. So, it occurred to me that my old friend would be exactly the person to send on the quest. Since he was even then engaged in meditating suicide, he would not be in the least afraid of fetching the stuff for me. Of course, I should not have thought of sending him had I believed there was any particular danger. Certainly there would be none if the material were handled properly, and in a wet state.

My old friend started on the mission valorously enough, but he lost his courage presently, and returned empty-handed.

I then sent one of my helpers, a spare man who worked for me occasionally, as he had been long connected with the manufacture and handling of explosives. I gave him the necessary money for the purchase of the material, for the hire of the team and his other expenses, and as there would be two or three dollars over, I told him he could spend that in any way he liked, for his own use and behoof.

He returned along toward evening, left the horse and wagon at the stable, and started up to the works with a bag containing ten pounds of fulminate, placed in a small hand-valise. Fortunately I saw him coming soon after he had abandoned the vehicle.

The road was altogether too narrow for him; the ground seemed to reel under his feet, and he was steadying himself by swinging the valise back and forth from side to side with great violence. A drunker man never walked.

I took the valise away from him, and carried it to the works myself. The next day, when we opened it, we found that instructions had not been followed about wetting the fulminate. The bag of dry fulminate had, when he procured it, been merely set in a pail of water for a few minutes, and only long enough to wet a thin stratum of the explosive, leaving the whole interior perfectly dry.

It is surely a wonder that the drunken man had not exploded this mass of dry fulminate in the rough handling he had given it. Had he fallen with the bag, he must almost certainly have caused an explosion by the shock of the impact of the fulminate against the ground.

NITROGLYCERIN BY AUTOMOBILE

At another time, I required some very pure nitroglycerin. As this material, like the fulminate of mercury, could not be transported by either freight or express, it was necessary to go and bring it over by horse and wagon, or by automobile. I decided to go and fetch it myself with my automobile, which, at that time, was a Haynes-Apperson of one of the early makes. That machine had the faculty of going wrong oftener and in more places than any other piece of machinery I ever saw or heard of.

It had a very short wheel base, and, as the steering gear had worn so much that there was a good deal of lost motion, it required very great skill to keep the car in the road. No sooner would it be brought in line with the highway than it would immediately proceed toward the ditch or some wall or tree. It swayed from side to side of the road like a drunken man, and it was necessary, in order to keep it in the road at all, to calculate an average with it.

As it was quite a long drive to where I was to procure the nitroglycerin, I went into New York and brought out a young chauffeur from the Haynes-Apperson Company, explaining to him fully why I wanted him, and for what I was going. I made him understand that I did not want him to start to accompany me unless he had the courage to stand by me to the end. He was all courage; bravery seemed to ooze out of him at every pore.

When we started on our journey, early the next morning, I found that he was wholly unable to steer the automobile. He could not keep it in the road at all, and I had to drive it all the way myself; but, as he understood the machine and how to repair it, I concluded that he might prove valuable on that account. And he did, for during the outgoing and return trip, that old machine broke down three times, and the tires went flat four times.

On arrival at the factory, I let the chauffeur wait while I went to procure the nitroglycerin. I took a lot of bicarbonate of soda with me, with which I absorbed the nitroglycerin, forming a sort of paste. This rendered it safe to handle, and, by placing it in water, I could at any time dissolve out the bicarbonate of soda, and leave the pure nitroglycerin.

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