Part 4

Finally, at the end of twenty-one years of service, having put aside a snug little fortune, sufficient for the remainder of his life in sunny Italy, he packed up his belongings and turned his face toward his old home. Arriving in New York, his ticket purchased, he hied himself to a noted Italian hostelry, to await the coming of the joyous morrow when he should actually be on the big steamer, headed for home.

Giovanni had no bad habits, and the bunco man failed to lure him. He took no stock in the dapper, polished-mannered compatriot just recently from his home place, who was acquainted with all the folks. His cash was sewed into his clothes, and those clothes would not come off until he reached his destination.

When he was shown up into his room at night and left alone with his thoughts, a placard upon the wall above the gas-burner attracted his attention. It read: "Don't blow out the gas," and under this injunction was the statement that gas burned after ten o'clock would be charged extra.

Giovanni was indignant. Here he was at last caught between the horns of a dilemma. This, to his mind, was downright thievery. He would cut the Gordian knot. He would disobey the injunction. He would not pay for gas burned overtime perforce; and he blew it out....

* * * * *

An old sea-captain who had for forty years traveled on every sea, who had weathered a thousand gales, and survived a hundred shipwrecks, on his return from his final voyage, in making his landing on his home shore, slipped from the dock into the water and under the skiff, and was drowned.

Such is the irony of chance!

SIR FREDERICK'S BONFIRE

Sir Frederick Abel, who was the originator of the modern process of making high-grade guncotton and of compressing it into dense cakes for use, told me the following story:

At one time, Sir Frederick had about five tons of dry guncotton, which was not of sufficient purity to stand the Government tests. He had, on previous occasions, frequently demonstrated how compressed guncotton, though dry, would quietly burn away without exploding when ignited, so he now fancied that his five tons would make a capital bonfire. With this idea of entertainment in possession of him, he invited a party of friends to witness the unique conflagration.

The friends were dominated more by the spirit of aloofness than was Sir Frederick himself, and they kept at a respectful distance, while Sir Frederick advanced toward the pile of explosive, and threw a lighted torch upon it. Then he retreated a short distance to avoid the intense heat, for he expected to see the whole pile burn away.

It started by merely burning; but, as I have already said about dynamite, it is notional stuff. So, on this occasion, the guncotton took a notion to explode after it got fairly on fire, which did not take very long. The whole mass detonated with terrific violence, and, even before Sir Frederick had retreated as far as he expected to go, he was knocked senseless by the concussion, and nearly every shred of clothing was blown from his body.... Although considerably bruised and lacerated, he recovered after several months.

He had learned a useful lesson: that a small quantity of compressed dry guncotton can be very well depended upon to burn quietly away without detonating, but, when a large mass of it is ignited, the greater heat of combustion and the greater pressure generated in expelling the larger quantity of the products of combustion, is almost sure to produce detonation.

The fact that a small quantity of an explosive material will burn away quietly without exploding has often led persons to think that a large quantity would burn in the same manner.

At one time, the British Government had on hand at Woolwich Arsenal about a hundred tons of cordite that had begun to show signs of decomposition, and it was decided to burn it. The entire quantity was taken out into an open meadow, at what was supposed to be a very safe distance from the city limits. A train was laid to the pile and set on fire.

For the same reason that the five tons of Sir Frederick Abel's guncotton detonated, this huge heap of cordite also detonated. Almost instantly after it was ignited, it exploded with most awful violence, and with very disastrous results. A number of buildings in the near vicinity were leveled to the ground. A few persons were killed and many more injured.

THE IRREVERENT NATIVE

After I had sold out my interests at Maxim, the place was taken over by a dynamite-manufacturing company. As there was left in one of the magazines a considerable quantity of dynamite when the property changed hands, the new concern, not choosing to sell it as their own manufacture, proceeded to utilize it as fertilizer upon a field of potatoes.

One of the natives, with his team and helper, was engaged to do this work. They had been instructed to use great care in opening the cases, but they still held their own opinions about the care necessary, which were based largely upon the contempt that is born of familiarity, and, having arrived upon the potato-patch with a good, big load of dynamite, they began to knock the cases open in any old way.

There were no surviving witnesses, not even the horses.

AT FOLLY'S MERCY

After I had sold the works at Maxim and had invented motorite, I needed a place in which to make the material, and hired a branch of the works there for that purpose.

It was winter. My wife had accompanied me as a precautionary measure. She was sitting in the laboratory to keep warm, near a big barrel stove charged with bituminous coal.

On entering the laboratory for something, my wife asked me what was in those two tin pails sitting near the stove. She said that she had a suspicion it might be nitroglycerin, and she informed me that one of my men had just been in, stirring the fire, and that the sparks flew out in all directions, some of them lighting in the buckets, to be quenched in the very thin film of water floating on top of the oily liquid.

"Horrors!" I said. "It _is_ nitroglycerin!"

I called the man who had placed it there, and told him to take it away. As it was necessary to keep the material from freezing, he took it into the boiler-house near by. A little later, on going into the boiler-house, I saw one of the men stirring the fire, while the other was standing with his coat-tails outstretched in either hand, forming a shield to keep the sparks from flying into the nitroglycerin.

It is practically impossible to make the ordinary man appreciate the necessity of care in the safe handling of explosives, and the life of the careful man is always endangered by the actions of the careless one.

THE WATCHMAN'S DOUBLE VISION

My successors in the use of the dynamite plant at Maxim had in their employ a day-watchman, an all-round combination useful and useless man, his usefulness and uselessness alternating with the alternation of his sobriety and inebriety.

One morning, after a night out, he proceeded to build the fire in the laboratory stove. To start up the kindling wood, he had been in the habit of lighting a handful of shavings, and then pouring on a little kerosene from a tomato can, which he kept upon a near-by shelf.

During that night, someone--possibly one of the laboratory operatives--had placed a similar can, filled with nitroglycerin, upon the same shelf, to keep it from freezing.

In periods of convalescence from his various stages of intoxication, the watchman had before seen two cans upon that shelf or shelves, but he knew that one of them was real, and the other an hallucination. Couldn't fool him that way!

Thinking that the hallucination would naturally be the lighter of the two cans, he took the one containing the nitroglycerin, and proceeded to pour it upon the fire.

There was so little of him left together after the explosion that, like Captain Castagnette, he died of surprise at seeing himself so dissipated.

THE ZEALOUS FOOL

On one occasion, at my laboratory near the shores of Lake Hopatcong, I was conducting some experiments to test the efficiency of the safety chamber of a detonating fuze for exploding projectiles charged with Maximite. The huge loaded shell armed with a fuze was placed in a pit and fixed so as to be set off by electricity from a distance.

To prevent any possibility of a circuit being formed to explode the detonator while making the connections at the pit, I went into the machine-shop, and opened the switch at the other end of the wires where they were connected with the battery. Not only did I take this precaution, but I disconnected also the wires themselves, in order to make assurance doubly sure.

Returning to the pit to connect up, my assistant, my wife and my father-in-law accompanied me. My assistant descended into the pit, while we stood over him, looking on. The instant he brought the wires in contact, the detonator went 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 débris. 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

An inventor, who lived in the mosquito belt of Staten Island, constructed a dynamite gun out of a piece of four-inch-gas-pipe, and a dynamite bomb out of a short section of gas-pipe, capped at both ends. The bomb was filled with No. 1 dynamite. He placed several pads of felt between the projectile and the powder charge, to lessen the shock upon the bomb. By using small charges, he succeeded in firing a number of the projectiles safely. Although the velocity was low, still it was greater than that obtainable with the Zalinski pneumatic dynamite gun, which at that time was beginning to receive some measure of public attention.

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.