ANOTHER EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 79, 13 July 1868, Page 170

ANOTHER EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL.

The Montreal Gazette gives the following additional particulars of the explosion of a new blasting powder in that city on the 28th April, briefly reported by telegraph:—

Some doubt obtains as to what the substance really was, a contemporary making it out to be a chloride of potash and taruin. It was contained in a cartridge marked “ Dominion Cartridge ; improved safety water-proof blasting cartridge, patented June 28, 1867, manufactured at Montreal,” and was a yellowish powder. We have good chemicaL authority for believing it to have been a mixture of sulphur with chlorate : of potash. The compound thus obtained is highly explosive under concussion or steady friction. If a small quantity of these substances be mixed and subjected to steady, firm friction under an iron pestle, a series of detonations like the explosion of percussion caps will ensue, but if a smart shock be giveu a powerful explosion will result. One peculiar property . of this composition is that its explosive force is exerted downwards. This, we understand, was mixed with common gunpowder on the somewhat novel principle in chemistry, however true in mechanics, that the two explosions, one upward aud one downward, would produce a lateral expansion. The cartridge had been placed in the hole drilled for the blast, and a man named John Dunphey was engaged in tamping the. sand round it with an iron bar, when, probably, from the concussion to which this composition is so sensitive, a terrible explosion took place, i . When the smoke cleaned away, Duraphy was seen lying on the ground, a Iffeless trunk, the blood spouting from the great arteries of the neck in crimson streams and soaking the ground round the body.. .The.skull was blown to pieces, literally,, as no fragment two inches square could be discovered, ;It was strewn piecemeal over the ground one portion being picked up over forty yards from. the scene of explosion. Dr Erhardt ran for thirty or forty feet, and then'.sank down. The workmen rushing to : his assistance, found his face badly bruised, and his : left hand. blown completely off, the arm, being shattered for four inches above the wrist. Mr George Bowie, the contractor, who with his partner. Mi M‘Naughton had been watching the- experiment,, was knocked down and when picked wp ’ was so covered/with blood.thatmot a. feature was. recognisable., On examination it. wa,s, .found that he:.was, ."jbadly. burnedabout fhe eyes.', Mr M^augh- J Tlios: Heffernan^ the head" and', eyes’/'’.,Straw, ;of Bostbii,was