Part 6

A quarry-man in a nearby town had, with his safety-ignoring habitude, attempted to load a hole with the stuff, using a crowbar as a rammer, with the result that he set off the charge, and the crowbar went through his head.

This unscheduled eventuation aroused the apprehension of the president of the company, who was also its backer. He began to grow suspicious about the safety of the material. Being so much interested, he went with me on my visit of inspection.

We left the train at a siding about a mile from the works, and had just started in their direction when there came a sudden boom and roar, and the earth shook. Over the powder works there rose a huge column of black smoke, flaring wide into the sky.

We found a great crater where the mixing house had stood. Three men were working in the building when the explosion occurred. A fortunate survivor who had left the place a moment before to go for a bucket of drinking water, was walking about the crater, apparently searching for something among the scattered remnants. As we approached him, he sadly said:

"I can't find much of the boys. I guess you'll have to plow the ground if you want to bury them."

A LIVELY DEAD ONE

Several years ago, at the works of the American Forcite Company, a batch of nitrogelatin blew up in process of manufacture and several men were killed. One laborer who was working so close to where the explosion occurred that his clothing was nearly all blown off and he was spattered with the blood of his companions and crazed by the shock, started in a wild and aimless run along the road, with his tattered garments flying in the wind.

A woman of the neighborhood, whose husband was employed at the works, intercepted him with the eager inquiry:

"Is anyone killed?"

"Yes, yes!" said he, "We are all killed! Every one of us is killed!"

And it was some time before he could be convinced that he was not among the dead.

INCIDENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOTORITE

Motorite consists of a compound of about seventy per cent. nitroglycerin and thirty per cent. gelatinated guncotton, the mixture being compounded in such a way as to form a tough and rubbery substance. This material is made into bars, which are smoothed and varnished upon the outside and then forced into steel tubes. In use, these steel tubes are placed in an apparatus in such wise that the bar of motorite can be ignited only at the exposed end, in a combustion chamber, into which water is forced, and as the combustion is confined to that end, it proceeds with absolute uniformity, according to the pressure, and without explosion. In other words, the motorite acts as a fuel, the products of combustion serving as a flame blast, blowing the water through a series of baffle plates, atomizing it, and converting it instantly into steam. The object of motorite is to replace compressed air in the driving of motors for self-propelled torpedoes.

I have already expended more than fifty thousand dollars in experiments with motorite and on different kinds of apparatus for its use. As about four times as much energy is available for driving a torpedo by this system as by any other, I hope some time to effect arrangements for the equipment of torpedoes with it.

The first bars of motorite that I made, I formed by passing through a die. The result was that a small, microscopic flaw which could not be seen with the naked eye extended through the bars from end to end, so that, when the bar was placed in the combustion apparatus, the flame of ignition passed immediately down through the flaw, exploding the apparatus.

After the first apparatus blew up, I made another one, and, as I could not very well conduct the experiments at the place where the first mishap occurred, I hired a floor in a building to make the test. But I needed an assistant, and it was problematical where I could find one.

One day, while returning home, I was accosted by a panhandler, a young man claiming to have just arrived from Pittsburg, seeking work. I told him that if he was actually looking for work I had a job for him, and I bade him come right along with me. I took him home that night, fed him, and watched him.

The next morning we went down to the shop. I explained to him all about the nature of the experiment that I was about to try, and told him that, if he had any timidity, the time to abscond was then and there. He told me that he was not afraid of anything, if I was not.

"Very well, then," I said, "I do not expect the thing to blow up; otherwise, I would not be here."

I got my time-watch ready, and told him to press the electric button to ignite the motorite. Instantly there was a terrific explosion. The windows were blown out into the street, and pieces of the shattered apparatus were driven into the ceiling and into the wall all about us; but fortunately neither of us was hit.

John looked calmly about him for a moment, and then at me, and remarked:

"God, she busted!"

While we were recovering from our amazement, half a dozen policemen rushed into the place, accompanied by a priest. I explained the mishap the best way I could, and, seeing that the priest was a handsome, genial, good-natured fellow, I appealed to him. He had a little chat with the policemen, and they all left.

I sent that priest a box of the best cigars that I could buy.

Under the counsel and advice of the landlord I then moved away from there.

I next bought a house, and in the back yard I built a laboratory with no windows or doors in it, except a skylight at the top and the windows and doors that fronted my house. The walls were of brick, and made thick. The skylight at the top was a large one, and was arranged to open up full size. Special precautions were taken by means of various attachments to cause the roof to stay on in case of emergency.

A new apparatus was made and erected and got ready to test. This time my wife was my assistant, and we arranged to touch the thing off by electricity from the house. Again it exploded, and one of the fragments of the apparatus, coming through the open door, struck the wooden wall behind which my wife and I were standing and nearly passed through it.

On entering the laboratory, I discovered for the first time what was the actual cause of the trouble, namely, the longitudinal flaw already referred to, evidenced by the fragments of the motorite that remained after the explosion, for motorite, like smokeless gunpowder, when subjected to explosive pressure, is immediately extinguished upon the release of the pressure, so that when the apparatus blew up, all of the unconsumed motorite was extinguished, just as when the projectile leaves the gun any unburned smokeless powder is extinguished and is blown out in front of the gun, where the partially consumed grains may be recovered.

The next motorite was made by rolling the material into sheets, cutting into discs, sealing them together under pressure, and in that way building up the bars, which precluded the possibility of there being any flaws.

Some motorite was soon made in this manner, and another apparatus constructed, which was tested and which worked very satisfactorily.

Following this successful result, I built a laboratory at a dynamite plant near Lake Hopatcong for conducting the experiments on a larger scale.

My assistant at the motorite laboratory was one of that American country type, absolutely honest, perfectly fearless, painstaking and diligent, of such timber as the great men of the earth are made. He was altogether a most lovable fellow. He had all his life worked with explosives, and was a veteran in the manufacture and use of nitroglycerin and dynamite. But, when doing pioneer work with explosives, there is always an unavoidable element of risk, even when the greatest care is taken.

We at first had the hydraulic press, in which we built up the sticks of motorite, located in the laboratory room itself; but I suggested to my assistant one day that it had better be placed outside, and a heavy brick wall built between us and the press, as a barricade in case of a possible accident.

"For," I said, "suppose you should by oversight neglect to put in the leather packing between the piston and the motorite, we might have an explosion."

He said that he could hardly forget that precaution. Nevertheless, the press was placed outside, and the barricade built. The very first time that we used the press thereafter he did forget the packing, with the result that the press exploded. Although we were behind the barricade, still the concussion brought us to our knees. Had the explosion occurred while the press was being operated in the main laboratory, we should both have certainly been very seriously injured, if not killed.

It was a matter of several months before the full-sized torpedo apparatus with which we were to experiment was completed and erected, and the necessary quantity of motorite made.

On the day before the regular test was to be conducted, I was called to Morristown, as expert on a case in court, and I left orders with my assistant to make up an additional small quantity of sealing compound, used for sealing the discs of motorite together in building up the bars. This sealing material was made of a mixture of nitroglycerin, guncotton, camphor and acetate of amyl.

As I did not receive the telegram to go to Morristown until after I left home that morning, my wife expected that I would be working at the laboratory that day, but knew that I might possibly have a call to Morristown.

On my way home that evening, I was informed by a neighbor that there had been an explosion in my laboratory, that my assistant had been killed, and that the place had been burned down. I hastened to the spot and found my wife there waiting for me. All that was left of my assistant lay in an adjacent building covered with a piece of sacking.

That was one of the saddest moments of my whole life. It is impossible to know what little slip or misjudgment may have produced the explosion. A little inadvertence in the handling of a bottle of nitroglycerin may have been the cause.

The manner in which my wife was informed of the accident was about on a par with that employed by the Irishman who took the remains of a fellow-workman, killed by an explosion, home to his wife in a wheelbarrow, and, knocking upon the door, asked:

"Does the widdy McGinnis live here?"

She replied: "Indade, and I'm not a widdy."

And he said: "And faith ye are, for I have his rimnants here in the wheelbarry with me."

A butcher was the messenger-bearer to Mrs. Maxim. He said:

"Mrs. Maxim, have you heard the news about the explosion?"

And he continued: "Mr. Maxim's laboratory blew up and burned down today. They have found some of his assistant, but they haven't found any of Mr. Maxim yet."

Mrs. Maxim immediately rushed to the scene of the accident, where she learned the welcome news that I was in Morristown that day.

* * * * *

It was a matter of another year of hard work before I was again ready to make a new trial of the torpedo apparatus. There were several amusing experiences in connection with that testing.

The apparatus held a charge of one hundred and ten pounds of motorite. Water was pumped continuously through a water jacket over the steel cylinders containing the burning motorite and into the combustion chamber during each run. The apparatus was provided with an exhaust valve so constructed as to control, to a nicety, the pressure in the combustion chamber.

Under three hundred pounds pressure to the square inch, which was what was mainly used, the motorite burned at the rate of a foot in length per minute, and as each foot in length weighed twenty-five pounds, it burned at the rate of twenty-five pounds per minute. Each pound of motorite evaporated a little more than two pounds of water, and the products of combustion, mingling with the steam produced, escaped from the exhaust valve through an inch-and-a-half nozzle.

The roar of the escaping gas and steam was so great that it was impossible to hear one shout at the top of his voice. The loudest shout was less than a whisper. The roar could be heard with great distinctness more than two miles away. A good idea can be had of the violence with which the steam and gases escaped, from the fact that a door, which accidentally swung shut during one of the runs in front of the nozzle, although seven feet distant, was blown from its hinges, broken in two, and the fragments hurled twenty feet away. The noise was so confounding, that it was some time before my assistants and myself could keep our senses about us and note and record the pressures on the various gauges during a run, although the apparatus was separated from us by a barricade so strong and heavy that there was no possibility of our being injured, even should there be an explosion.

One day, just as we were about to make a run, the superintendent of a nearby explosives works called upon us, and I asked him if he would like to see the run, and he said he would.

I then asked him to note particularly and to record the pressure on a certain gauge. The run lasted about five minutes and, on turning to him for his notes, he himself was surprised that he had been so confounded by the noise that he had not thought of looking at the gauge at all.

On the day when the final test took place, the firm of torpedo-builders that was interested with me in the apparatus sent several representatives, including their chief engineer, vice-president and other officers of the company, to witness the test. Everything being in readiness, and each member of the committee being convinced that there was no possible danger in remaining in proximity to the apparatus and back of the barricade, while it was being tested, I gave each of the committee explicit instructions to watch the various gauges and to note the pressures, while the chief engineer and myself were to watch the nozzle gauge, and to observe the character and force of the steam and gases escaping from the nozzle.

I told the several members of the committee it was indispensable that they should carefully watch the pressure gauges during the entire run. As it was a condition of the test that I should get up steam within ten seconds, the chief engineer stood ready with his stop-watch when the electric button was pressed to ignite the motorite.

As the action was instantaneous, that is to say, as steam was got up practically instantaneously and was escaping at the nozzle under full head as quickly as a gun could be fired, he did not think of his stop-watch, and it was some little time before I could get him to look at the pressure gauge on the nozzle, so as to observe the character of the escaping steam. His eyes had a blank, meaningless look, but it must be confessed that he had the grit to stand there. Not so, however, with the other members of the committee. Each of them was far more interested in his own individual run than he was in the run of the apparatus, for not one of them was in sight when the run was completed. They came straggling back sheepishly, but no urging sufficed to bring them near the apparatus during any of the succeeding runs.

THE MULE GUN

In the old days when the Indians were sometimes troublesome on the Western frontier, an officer in the regular army, who was rather an ingenious fellow, conceived the idea of making a mountain gun out of a mule and the barrel of a common field-piece, using the mule for the carriage. He therefore had the gun securely mounted on the back of the beast.

They had not proceeded far with this novel battery, when a small knot of hostile savages was espied quietly eating their midday meal within easy range. The mounted gun was forthwith loaded heavily with grape and canister, the mule taken by the head and pointed in the direction of the Indians. A short piece of fuze that had been placed in the touch-hole of the gun was ignited.

The mule, hearing the sizzing of the fuze, began to rear and snort and kick and whirl about, while the officer and his men scudded to cover, and flattened themselves out upon the ground. They had not long to wait when there was a terrific crash. The gun had exploded under the overcharge, with the utter demolition of the mule carriage.

The Indians, hearing the report, looked quickly about them, and seeing the fragments of an exploded mule rocketing through the air, were frightened nearly out of their wits, and fled precipitately.

HOW GUSSIE GOT LOADED

When I was a young man I taught several terms of school in Maine, where, in the small country districts, the teacher is expected to be a walking encyclopedia of information.

One day there came a loud knock upon the door of the schoolhouse. On going out to see what was the cause of the imperative summons, I found standing there the wife of one of the neighbors, white as a sheet with agitation and alarm. She excitedly told me that her little boy, Gussie, had just swallowed a bullet, and she asked me what she should do for him.

"Why," said I pleasantly, "Give him a good charge of gunpowder. But be careful not to point him toward anybody."

She went home and gave him a dose of gunpowder, without ever seeing the joke.

DYNAMITE'S FREAK

A contractor, who does business up in New York State, told me the following story:

A carload of nitroglycerin dynamite had been shipped to him, but was held up in a freight-house for a day or two before delivery to him. One night while it was there, the freight-house took fire. Hearing the fire-alarm and looking out, he was astounded to see that it was the freight-house burning. Believing that his carload of dynamite would be sure to explode, he started to run to the scene in all haste, to warn the firemen and others to keep far away from the inevitable explosion, when, suddenly, there was a great burst of flame, which shot high into the sky and flared out bright and wild in all directions, sending up an enormous column of smoke. But this fierce combustion lasted only a few minutes, and then subsided.

He knew that his dynamite had burned up, and, curiously enough, without exploding.

He met the fire chief after the conflagration, and they spoke of the fire. The chief remarked that there must have been some very combustible freight on one of the cars. He said that, when the fire first started, the firemen played a full stream of water on this car, but it did not do any good. The car burned so fast and so fierce that they had to rush away for their lives, or they would have been consumed by the intense heat, and he wondered what it could be that would burn so fiercely.

When told that it was a carload of dynamite, he felt like a man who discovers the next day that he had, during the night, walked along the sheer edge of a high precipice.

Although dynamite in such quantities as a carload when ignited is almost certain to explode instead of merely burning, still, sometimes, even that quantity will take fire and burn up completely without exploding; while, at other times, a single stick of dynamite when ignited will detonate.

EXPLOSIVE VAGARIES

One of the old importers of picric acid in this country told me the following story:

He sold about five tons of picric acid to a manufacturer of dynamite doing business at a certain place up the Hudson, for employment as an ingredient in a particular kind of high explosive.

Not being very familiar with picric acid and the character of the exploder necessary to detonate it, the purchaser had poor success with it, and he called upon the importer with the grievance that he had been sold such a poor lot of picric acid that it was actually non-explosive, and was therefore practically worthless, and he wanted the seller to take it back immediately.

The importer could not convince him that he was mistaken, although he insisted that it was only necessary to know how to explode it, and that, when properly detonated, it was one of the most powerful explosives in the world.

"No," said the purchaser, "that picric acid you have sent me is not an explosive."

He admitted he knew that picric acid was recognized as a very powerful explosive; but he was sure of one thing--that the picric acid that had been sent him was not an explosive.

"Why," said he, "it is no more explosive than sand, and I want you to take it back."

"All right," said the importer, "you may return me a sample of it, and I will submit it to the requisite tests, and if it proves an inferior lot I will take it back."

That day, during the purchaser's absence, some workmen were moving a barrel of the picric acid in order to let a plumber mend a small leak in a lead pipe, which supplied the place with water. Over and about this lead pipe had been spilled a considerable quantity of picric acid, which had formed picrate of lead with the lead pipe.

The friction from the barrel set off this picrate of lead, which in turn detonated the picric acid; and the whole five tons went off with such violence as amply to demonstrate its explosive qualities.

The following day the purchaser returned to the importer with the complaint that that picric acid sold him was the most sensitive, most violent and treacherous explosive material in the world.

The importer laughed, and reminded him of their previous conversation. But, as the dynamite factory had been demolished and several men killed, the purchaser did not respond very readily to the humor of the situation.

THE TURKEY THAT WENT TO BED

Possibly it may not be diverging too much from dynamite stories to tell of an experience of mine with a steam-cooker, which I invented away back in the eighties.

In this cooker I was able to roast and bake by superheated steam. Sometimes it worked very well. At other times the safety valve gave me a great deal of trouble, being altogether too uncertain in its action.

One day I was sitting alone in the kitchen, steam-roasting a turkey, when dispossessed Bridget, who was waiting in an adjoining room, opened the kitchen door, and took a sly peep at me. I was endeavoring to convince her that the thing was perfectly safe, when, of a sudden, that cooker blew up. The kitchen windows were blown out, the door ripped off its hinges, and the stove demolished.

Fortunately, none of the fragments found either Bridget or me. The oven portion of the cooker, containing the turkey, went upstairs somewhere, through the ceiling. Later developments showed that the turkey had gone to bed in the room over the kitchen.

That cooker was my first patent.

BILL BENNETT, DETECTIVE

We had a neighbor, when I was a young man down in Maine, by the name of Bill Bennett, a hard-working farmer, who was very proud of his pile of dry hard wood, which he had prepared for the winter's cold.

Late in the autumn, however, the wood began to disappear faster than he thought it ought. He was sure that someone was stealing it, and inasmuch as his nearest neighbors had no store of wood whatsoever, and, too, were notoriously shiftless, he concluded that they must be the pilferers.

A little bit of detective work that he practiced to ascertain the truth of his conclusions was certainly ingenious and worked well.

Bennett took a dozen sticks of wood, and bored a large hole in the end of each of them, which he filled with rifle powder, putting about a pound into each stick. He then plugged the holes skillfully to conceal the evidences of his work, sawing off a short bit of the plugged end of each stick, so that the plug would not show, and distributed these sticks upon the part of the pile that was shrinking. He was careful to select the wood for his own burning from another portion of the heap.

The following evening he was looking from his window toward the house of the neighbors, wondering how long it would be before his ingenuity bore fruit, when suddenly there was a flash, a crash and a roar, followed by screams of "Murder!" and "Fire!"