Part 3

Kruger had a dog which was well trained to fetch anything that his master threw for him. One day Kruger took some sticks of dynamite and went to a neighboring stream with the intention of dynamiting some fish. He attached fuze and exploder to a stick of the explosive, and threw it toward the stream, but, missing his aim, the dynamite landed on a rock.

The faithful dog, thinking that the stick had been thrown for him to bring, ran and returned with it to his master in great glee, with the fuze sizzing nearer and nearer to the explosive. Kruger ran in horror, the dog after him, deeming it great sport. The dog being the better runner, danced about his master. Finding it impossible to escape by running, Kruger climbed a tree with all the alacrity he could muster, and had just reached a vantage of safety when the dynamite exploded, and the dog--well, the dog was holding the stick in his mouth when it went off.

DISCHARGING PAT

A works foreman of mine who had been employed as assistant superintendent in another dynamite factory told me the following story:

He one day intercepted an Irish laborer who was taking a barrel, which had been used for settling nitroglycerin, down to the soda dry-house, with the intention of filling it with hot nitrate of soda from the drying-pans. The foreman scolded Pat roundly, and told him that, should he do such a reckless thing again, he would be instantly discharged. The foreman then went to the superintendent's office and reported the matter.

In the meantime, Patrick, utterly ignoring the injunction, simply waited for the foreman to disappear, then proceeded to the dry-house with the barrel and began to fill it with the hot nitrate of soda.

Over in the superintendent's office the foreman had just completed his narration of Pat's carelessness, when there was a thunderous report and a crash of glass, and Pat's booted foot landed on the office floor between them.

The superintendent dryly remarked, "Evidently, Pat is already discharged!"

LINES TO A LADY

Some years ago, when I was conducting experiments with detonators for my safety delay-action fuze, which was adopted by the United States Navy in 1908 as the service detonating fuze for high-explosive projectiles, I received instructions that a parcel of fulminate detonators, made at the torpedo station, had been received and were being held for me at Fort Lafayette, and I was told to go to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, whence I would be taken in a tug to the Fort for them.

After having procured the package, I concluded that it would be much more expeditious for me to take a trolley car home than to return by the tug. On entering the car and seating myself, I placed the package beside me on the seat, keeping my eye constantly upon it. It was, by the way, perfectly safe to carry if subject to merely ordinary handling, but it would not do to jump on it or to kick it about much, for, in that case, there might be some energetic results.

No sooner had I comfortably seated myself in the car than a huge, determined, militant-looking woman entered, brushing a few small men aside. Seeing all the seats occupied except the space where the package was, she turned and hurled herself backward and downward.

Her movements were so quick that I had barely time to throw my left arm firmly under her, and, although I am unusually strong, I had all I could do to support her enormous bulk. When she felt my arm beneath her, protecting the package, she was all the more indignant and determined to crush the package in order to teach me a lesson, and she glared upon me fiercely. I finally succeeded, by throwing my shoulder against her, in toppling her sufficiently to remove the package with my right hand, and then I let her down upon the seat.

I seldom wax poetical, and never permit myself to write verses to ladies when I am not sure that they will be gratefully received. But, in this case, I side-stepped a little from my usual course, and, taking my note-book from my pocket, wrote the following lines, which I folded up nicely, and when I arrived at my street, I handed the paper to Her Militancy:

_Dear Madam, I'm an anarchist. That package was a bomb. I'm on my way Someone to slay, And this is really true-- I didn't want to waste that bomb On just the likes of you._

HE SEPARATED

The freezing point of dynamite is about eight degrees F. higher than that of water. Once frozen, it remains congealed at temperatures considerably above the freezing point. When solidly frozen, it can be detonated only with much difficulty, and even then only with great loss of explosive force. Consequently, when conducting blasting operations in cold weather, it is necessary to thaw frozen dynamite before using it. The process is neither dangerous nor difficult if conducted with ordinary precautions, but it may be made full of peril by carelessness or ignorance.

A friend of mine named Roynor, when gold-hunting in Alaska, had as a partner a venerable prospector whose only known name was Andy. Andy was the dynamiter of the combination, as well as chief cook and dish-washer.

The old man used to utilize the oven of the cooking stove for thawing his dynamite. Occasionally, he would forget that the dynamite was there until it was heated to the danger point. These little inadvertencies at last strained the nerves of Roynor beyond the elastic limit. He remonstrated to his aged partner with all the epithetitious sesquipedalian terminology of which he was capable, but nothing in the way of language or dynamite had any terrors for the old man.

"Andy," said Roynor, finally, "if you are not more careful with that dynamite, we are going to separate, and we are going to separate the very next time you put any dynamite in the oven."

The following evening, as Roynor was returning from his day's work, and when nigh the shack where his partner was cooking, he saw the shack instantly convert itself into a blinding flash, which solidified into numerous scattered débris that flew by him and fell round him in abundance.

When he recovered from the stunning shock of the explosion and dazedly looked about him, he saw many fragmentary evidences of the repetition of the prospector's carelessness.

"Well, Andy," he sadly remarked, "I told you we should separate the next time you did it. We have separated all right--particularly you."

THE WELL-DIGGER'S CASUALTIES

At my laboratory near Lake Hopatcong, one of the natives, who had made a reputation as a well-digger, and claimed to be able to descend through more rock in a day than could any other living man, thought that his strenuous habitude would adapt him to the manufacture of explosive materials, and with this in view he applied to me for a position.

My foreman gave him a job in which his duty was to assist with the rolling of motorite. The foreman gave the fellow explicit instructions about the care necessary to keep his fingers from getting in between the rollers, as it would not only prove uncomfortable for him were he to shed a finger or a hand, but it would also spoil the motorite by mixing it with his lacerations.... Almost at once, the end of one finger went.

Immediately, the well-digger was discharged, for his own sake and for the sake of motorite.

The man next took a contract to dig a well for one of the cottagers on the Lake. It was in the early winter. The weather was cold, and his dynamite froze very hard. He placed it in a bucket of boiling hot water, which thawed the outer stratum of the frozen stick, overheating it and rendering it very sensitive, while the core remained frozen solid.

He was too active and impatient a workman to wait long for a stick of dynamite to thaw, so he took the partly thawed stick, seized a hatchet, and proceeded to chop off one end of it.

The blow of the ax upon the soft, overheated, highly sensitive portion, compressing it against the frozen interior, which served as an anvil, exploded the stick. There was one finger and the thumb left on his right hand which held the ax, while his left hand, which had held the dynamite, and his whole left arm, were blown away.

When he looked about him with the one astonished eye that was left, he seemed pained that his old friend dynamite had gone back on him in that way.

THE RIVAL EDITORS

The following story was related to me by a professional liar, and yet I have suspicions that it is not true in every detail; but I feel sure that some variant of it has been true more than once, with the exception of the aerial incident.

A certain inventor had invented one of the very often-invented high explosive compounds of chlorate of potash, sulphur, charcoal, paraffin wax, etc., thinking that he had made a great discovery.

Now it happens that there is so much erraticism about high explosive mixtures with chlorate of potash as a base that the pathway of invention of such compounds has been strewn with the wreckage of the hopes and anatomy of their inventors.

The inventor had enlisted the financial support of a promoter, and the promoter was endeavoring to enlist financial support for himself, and to that end had invited several men of means, with two rival newspaper editors of the place, to witness a demonstration of the explosive at the inventor's laboratory, which was a two-story, light frame structure.

The promoter was letting himself be interviewed by the two editors and other newspaper reporters on the upper floor, while the inventor was making a demonstration with some of the stuff on the lower floor, the prospective investors warily watching the proceedings from a respectful distance.

The inventor had about half a barrel of the stuff in a tub. He first took a portion of it and pounded it on an anvil to show that it would not explode from shock. Next he took a handful of it and threw it into the fire under the boiler, to show that it would not explode from mere ignition. He then took a hot iron, which he had brought to a white heat in a forge, and thrust it into the half barrel of the infernal mixture, to show that it simply could not be exploded except with a very powerful exploder or detonator.

But the mixture happened, on that occasion, to differ somewhat from the inventor with respect to the sequence of eventuations--and exploded.

The building went up, and the promoter, the two editors and the reporters on the upper floor accompanied the building.

Two of the newspaper men were great rivals. One of them was the editor of the _Clarion_ and the other the editor of the _Echo_. It so happened that the _Clarion_ had better facilities for getting telegraphic news than the _Echo_, and accordingly the _Clarion_ was usually able to post its news in advance of the _Echo_, and the editor of the _Clarion_ used often to chaff his rival with the remark, "It's no use to put up your poster now, for my poster of the same news is just coming down." He called the _Echo_ the echo of the _Clarion_.

When the explosion occurred, the editor of the _Clarion_, being more directly over the explosive than was the editor of the _Echo_, went up farther and faster, and on his return met the editor of the _Echo_ still going up, and called out to him, "Behind as usual! All of the other fellows are coming down."

THE PASSING OF "JEOPARDY"

We once had a servant girl whom we nicknamed "Jeopardy," because she could not be prevented from pouring kerosene directly from the can upon a lighted fire.

One day, Jeopardy left us very suddenly, and she never came back. We were sorry she left, as Jeopardy was a good girl. It developed that she had chanced to find a fifty-pound case of dynamite sticks in the wood-shed, which she had been using to start the fire in the kitchen stove.

Sometimes, dynamite will work all right for such a purpose, but it is notional stuff and can not be depended upon merely to burn. It was during one of these intervals of independability that Jeopardy went.

THE INVOLUNTARY ATTACK

Soon after the invention of the Maxim automatic machine gun, I took the American agency for the introduction of the weapon to the United States Government. Among the tests that were conducted with the gun at Sandy Hook was one known as the sand test, sand being sifted into the mechanism of the gun, which was then loaded and fired. The gun went through the test perfectly.

The commanding officer, however, had not himself been present at the regular tests and arrived upon the scene only after they had been concluded. This particular officer was a dyspeptic, and was at times very unpleasant and domineering. On this occasion, he was particularly so. When told by the officers immediately in charge of the tests that they had been concluded, he peremptorily commanded that the gun should be loaded and fired again. One of the under-officers demurred, stating that a sand test was a very hard one on the gun, and that it would be unfair to subject it to unnecessary hardship of that character. That officer was immediately sat upon very hard.

The gun was loaded and made ready, pointing out to sea, as usual. At this moment, a schooner was seen rapidly coming into range. The commanding officer, however, said that he wanted to see only a few rounds fired, and that there would be plenty of time to fire them before the schooner came into the zone of danger; and he immediately gave the command: "Fire."

My assistant, who was operating the gun, instantly obeyed. After the discharge of perhaps twenty-five rounds came the command: "Cease firing!"

But the gun kept right on. Then, the command came several times in loud shouts, but the gun did not hear. The rage of the commanding officer was at white heat, but it did no good. The gun kept right on firing.

There were three hundred and thirty-three rounds in the belt, the weapon had been rigidly clamped to a set direction, and my assistant, being a little bit rattled at the loud shouts of the commanding officer, did not think to unclamp it, and turn it out of range of the schooner.

Soon, a stream of bullets, flying at the rate of six hundred a minute, were ricocheting all about the schooner, and there was wild excitement and waving of hands on board--all to no purpose, until the last cartridge had been exploded.

The trigger had been pulled by the sand and held pulled. It was, consequently, impossible to stop the gun from firing, until the belt of cartridges was exhausted.

I felt glad. The subordinate officers also looked gratified.

HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD

Liquid nitroglycerin is still used to torpedo the oil-wells when they get old, in order to give them a new lease of life.

There was one teamster in the old days who had become notorious as a hauler of the dangerous explosive. The law does not permit the shipment of the liquid by freight or by express, and for that reason this teamster had plenty to do in hauling nitroglycerin for long distances. He was a great smoker and his old pipe was always alight, though he might be riding on a ton of nitroglycerin with a few kegs of black gunpowder chinked into the load.

One day he was carrying, on runners, about two tons of nitroglycerin and a few odd kegs of gunpowder, when something happened. There had been a fall of several inches of light snow the evening before, and the scene of the eventuation was an open field which he was crossing.

There was an enormous crater in the ground; the light snow around the crater was besprinkled with a few shreds of horse and harness and a sliver or two of sled, but not a trace of the driver was ever found.

THE FORGOTTEN PRECAUTION

I once hired board and apartments at the house of a Frenchwoman, who took in only a few select gentlemen boarders. Perhaps I may have been justly esteemed the star boarder, inasmuch as I paid the highest price, and, too, in addition to a sleeping room and a library, I hired another large room to serve me as a laboratory. Although my main laboratory was located at my factory, still I was in the habit of conducting a few experiments in a small way when not at the factory.

I had given my landlady particular instructions about not handling the various things in my laboratory. I strictly enjoined her not to touch anything under any circumstances--I would keep the place in order myself. Nevertheless, she could not be prevented from entering the laboratory to dust and tidy it up a bit, and she generally knocked over a thing or two in the process.

One day, I brought home a pint glass jar of pure nitroglycerin, setting it up out of reach of the little three-year-old girl, who often used the laboratory as a playground, in spite of my protestations. I called my landlady's attention to the fact that this bottle contained nitroglycerin, and I explained its dangerous character unless it were left undisturbed.

I told her that, if she found it out of the question to let the bottle alone, and should, in dusting, succeed in knocking it over and spilling its contents upon the table where it stood or upon the floor, and should wipe up the oily liquid with a rag, not to put the rag in the stove, for, if she did, she would blow the roof of the house off, and project herself into the empyrean, and through it and out at the other side.

She actually remembered this injunction for more than three days, but, on the fourth day, on my return home, the little three-year-old met me as I came in, and said:

"Mamma very sick. Cure Mamma."

"Mamma" was lying upon a sofa, pale as a ghost, and breathing heavily. When I asked her what the matter was, she answered, "Oh, I am so sick!"

I began to be thoroughly frightened, and wormed out of her the fact that she had a terrible nitroglycerin headache. It came out that she had been dusting and tidying the laboratory that day, and had inadvertently knocked over the bottle of nitroglycerin. Fortunately, it did not explode as it fell, the contents being merely spilled upon the table and floor.

She took an old towel and soaked the liquid up with it. She then rolled up the towel in a tight, snug, compact wad, and started toward the kitchen to put the wad in the cook-stove and burn it up, when, just as she arrived at the stove, she felt a dizziness in the head, and a strange sort of sinking sensation in the stomach. The top of her head began to buzz and pound.

Then, she saw light. It dawned upon her, like the inspiring flash that came upon Saul, that this was nitroglycerin, and she recalled what I had told her about the effect it would have upon her if she handled it, and my direction that, if she should spill the stuff and then wipe it up, she must not burn the rag.

THE FATAL HAT

Out in the Pennsylvania oil regions in the early days, while nitroglycerin in the liquid state was being used experimentally as a blasting agent, some boys found in a creek an old felt hat, which had been used as a filter for nitroglycerin.

One of the boys accidentally discovered that when laid upon a stone and the edge of the hat hit with a hammer, it would crack, so they took it to a blacksmith's shop, where they could have some fun by hammering it on an anvil.

At the first blow the old hat exploded. Two of the boys were killed outright, and two more were badly injured.

The blacksmith at the time of the accident, happened to be standing outdoors, which thereafter constituted his blacksmith shop until he could rebuild.

A DROP TOO MUCH

Professor Mowbray, who made the nitroglycerin for the Hoosac Tunnel and afterward served the American Xylonite Company many years as consulting chemist, conceived the idea that he could make a very powerful smokeless gunpowder by the use of nitroglycerin merely absorbed by fibrous guncotton and rolled into pellets. He had at the time a young assistant chemist at work for him, who has now become a man of much wealth and prominence in New York.

The assistant prepared some of the pellets under Mowbray's directions, loaded them into a rifle under wad and ball, and fired at a target made of several layers of pine boards. But the pellets did not seem to give the bullet the required penetration. Mowbray suggested remedying this defect by adding a little more nitroglycerin, which was done. The young chemist demurred a little. Still, he did as instructed--loaded and fired the piece again, with but little better results. This time, however, the breech mechanism stuck, and was opened with difficulty.

Mowbray said that there was but one thing to do, and that was to add a few more drops of nitroglycerin. It occurred to the young chemist that this sort of gunpowder came pretty near being dynamite, and he declined to fire the piece the next time, and was deaf to all entreaties of the Professor. As a compromise, the gun was rigged up on a rest, pointing at the target; a string was attached to the trigger, which the assistant, standing behind a barricade, pulled.

This time, there was considerable penetration of the target, and the walls of the building where the test took place were penetrated in many places, not with the bullet, but with the fragments of the exploded weapon.

Mowbray, hearing the report, ran out and ventured the suggestion that he guessed he must have got in a drop too much of nitroglycerin.

A CLOSE CALL

I had one very close call while conducting a sand test of the Maxim gun at Annapolis, where the Naval Proving Grounds were formerly located. The gun had passed through all of the regular tests satisfactorily, and it was then suggested to try if sand enough could be put into the mechanism box to block it and prevent its firing.

The gun fired perhaps fifty rounds before it stopped. Then it stuck, and my assistant worked at the belt and lever, attempting to start it again. I told him to put down the safe so that the gun could not fire, which he did. I was then about to step around the gun in front, which I confess was a very careless thing to do, when it began firing again. I was already so close to the muzzle that my clothes were cut by the bullets and burned by the gunpowder.

The trigger had been pulled, and held pulled, by the sand, so that the safe did not prevent it from firing.

It is pretty good practice to keep away from the business end of a loaded gun.

A PICKANINNY'S TREASURE TROVE

Once at Annapolis, while we were firing a six-pounder semi-automatic gun in a speed test, we had succeeded in firing forty-two aimed shots in a minute into a huge earth butt, which, owing to recent rains, was merely a heap of mud.

The day following, a negro boy, about fourteen years old, found one of the projectiles, which had penetrated the butt, and glancing, came out at the top without exploding. This he brought up to where my assistant was doing some work on the gun, and showed what he had found.

My assistant shouted at him, "Look out! That's loaded, and if you drop it, it might go off."

Frightened, the negro immediately dropped the projectile upon the hard cement pavement, and, as it struck point down, it did go off, and took off one of his legs; and a fragment of the shell came dangerously close to the head of my assistant.

NOT TO BE BUNCOED

The great Du Pont Powder Company had in its employ at one time a faithful, patient and lucky fellow, an Italian, who worked constantly, with not a day off except Sundays, for twenty-one years in the corning mill, breaking black gunpowder press cake into grains. During that period the coming mill had blown up seven times, once every three years, but each time Giovanni had happened, by the merest chance, to be outside for a few seconds to get a drink of water or on some other brief errand. Twice he had had his clothes nearly ripped off him, and his face and hands burned, such had been his proximity on these occasions to the crater of fire as the mill went up, and once he had been rendered unconscious by the shock.