Dynamite.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1994, 18 April 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Dynamite.

(From the Cornhill Magazine.) Nine or ten miles below Gravesend, where tha salt tide broadens between the marshes and the sandbanks, and flows more cleanly and more healthful towards the sea, there xuns up into the Essex shore a narrow wind* ing creek, between Canvoy Island and the Fobbing Marsh. As our launch rounds the buoy and enters the creek, on the vast and silent highway we are leaving, there is only to be seen a whitebait boat at work and a lazy, drifting yacht, and far below in the distance towards Southend the tanned sails of a fleet of barges coming out of the Medway with bricks and lime and making for London Bridge. On Canvey Island, round tho Coastguard station, the sheep feed quietly, and along the saelving and discoloured old sea-wall, bnilt by the Dutch, and now the care of the Essex wall-warden?, men are scattered at work, replacing the fallen stones and repairing tho broken groins, in shelter on the motionless water lie tho pitch-pine eel boats, whose perforated boxes are alongside, full of the spoil of the Zuyder Zee ; and not far from the deck of the ' Matilda and Jane,' where a pair of unfinished oars lie glistening in the sun, there rises and spreads the penetrating odour of boiling shrimps. There is peace in the creek, and a soothing calm. There is no lapping o( water nor shore murmur to break the silence, broken only at length by our oaptain, who gives a loud ' Ahoy ! ' and ' Hier, mann 1 ' to ono of the Dutch eel tchvytt, when a ragged and blinking head appears above the hatches, and begins voluble explanations and excuses far an infringed regulation about an anchor. And yet in this same placid creek of Hole Haven their lies at rest almost dynamite enough, if judiciously plaoed and scientifically fired, to reduce London to splinters : enough almoHt, indeed, to wreck a continent : for on each of the blunt and honest-looking old coal-hulks we presently steam pant, the 1 Eagle,' the ' Minerva,' and five others of similar size, there lurks beneath the waterline some five-and-twenty tons of the terrible agent of destruction that, discovered by Alfred Nobel in 18C7, has these last few years been so actively engaged in trying the resources of our civilization. Alongside the ' Minerva, 1 painted grimly black and :ed, a red flag is flying; its only protector, an old man, swabbing the rainwater on the deck. The thought occurs to as : ' And what,' we ask, ' is to prevent half a dozen determined men boarding her one dark night and helping thprneelves to the dynamite they want ? ' To which ingenious inquiry our captain quietly answers, " Nothing.' The Nobel family is one co remarkable that, in an article on dynamito, a brief notice of them will not seem out of place. Emmanuel, the father of the three brothers, Robert, Ludwig, and Alfred— caoh of whom is now a millionaire — was the inventor of the torpedo, which in 18.18, tho year of the discovery of gun-cotton, he carried from his home in Sweden to St. Petersburg, and sold to the Russian Government. When the Crimean war broke out, Emmanuel Nobel had an engineering establishment on the Neva, where his sons Robert and Ludwig were employed ; and there, under his supervision, were manufactured those submarine minei which proved so troublesome to our fleet while blockading Constadt, and the engines for the gunboats and men-of-war built by the Russian Government in large numbers in 1955, the second year of the war. Five I ears later, tho works had developed into ono of the largest in Russia ; and though, in anticipation of Government contracts, Emmanuel

Nobel bad sunk a considerable amount of capital in still further extending them, the promises of orders were not realised, and in thr end the firm Euspended payment. The father retired to Sweden, where he died ; Ludwig, who had already gained a reputation as an engineer, carried on the works for two years, at the request ot the creditora, aa manager ; Robert went to Germany, where he devoted himself to the petroleum interest, the rapid development of which ia America was then the talk of commercial Europe ; and Alfred, the dijcovrer of dynamito, began to follow those chemical pursuits which have piven him interest in fourteen factories in diffrrert parts of Europe. With 500 L saved during his two years of management, Ludwig Nobel established some small engineering works, where he took a peries of oon ti acts from the Government for casting shot and shell, converting guns, and manufacturing rinV stocks, and in twelve years realised 400,000J In 1871, Robert, helped with capital by his brother, began operations as a petroleum refiner in a small way at Baku, on the Caspian, his attention having been drawn to tho industry there the year befoie, during a journey in the Caucasus in search of walnut-wood for Ludwig'B rifle stocks. The story of the growth of the Baku works, as told by Mr. Marvin in " Engineering," to which able and interesting paper we are much indebted, reads, ho far as petroleum can be considered romantic like a romance. In the face of a hundred and twenty other refineries aiid the mo^t htupendou9 diflicultiCß of transport, tho Nobel Brothers' Production Company (lainihar to Russians aa the Tovarithch"stvo Nrphtnnavo Pioitvothtva Ihatieft Nobel) hits gradually grown, until at tho pre-st-nt time they supply tho whole of Russia with oil, and pinco the opening of the BakuBatoum railway, will no doubt supply a gre*t p*rt of Europe, India, and China. Tboy have succeeded in driving ail American kerosone out of their home markets, and, now that the chasm between Baku and Europe in being bridged ovor, will scarcely find difficulty in treating it in the same manner abroad. The Caspian industry is one of tho oldest and most fruitful in tho world ; the petroleum is found sporadically over a range of 720 miles between the Black Sna and the Caspian, but until ten years ago it lay iv the hands of apathetic Russians and Americans, whose wasteful and primitive operations have gradually had to yield to the vast organ iza tion of the Nobela. " The oil," says Marco Polo, "is not good with food, but it ia good to burn, and is also used to anoint camels that have the mange." And this oil that is good to burn, all through the long summer twilights the petroleum trains are carrying to the country depots for winter storage and use. Through sixty miles of pipes the oil runs down from the wells to tho port of Baku, where it is shipped on to the transport steamers of the Volga, and trains and steamers all converge on the huge depot of Orel, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, and Saratoff, where the reservoirs of each will hold eighteen million gallons of burning oil, and whence it is sold to the provincial dealers, who carry it away in barrels to thoir stores. Of the sixty million gallons of kerosene that are carried over Russia by the farm in the year, not a drop ia sold except for ready caah. This vast enterprise, now that Robert Nobel has retired from it in ill-health, is directed from St. Petersburg by his brother Ludwig. In a word, Ludwig and Robert Nobel have as completely upset the petroleum industry as Alfred has, or, in a measure, will, upset the art of war. At present, though dynamite and other nitro-glycerino compounds were used both by the Prussians and the French at the soige of Paris and throughout the war, the only foreign nation that imports them for purposes of offence is the Chinese. In this country they are used solely for blasting and the sinking of coal-mine shafts. Dynamite, which has been desoribed by Sir Frederick Abel as " one of the Bafest, most powerful, aud most convenient explosive agents applicable to industrial purposes," in its simplest form closely resembles moist brown sugar, and is nitro-glycerine absorbed in any inert base. It ia not yet twenty years old, having been first offered for sale in June, 18G7, when, owing to the strong prejudice against its ohief ingredient, it began by making only slow progress. In the form in which it is licensed for importation and use in this country, dynamite must consist of 75 per cent, of nitro-glycerine and 2.1 per cent of an infusorial earth known as kietelguhr. Of dynamite properly so called there are only two kinds, distinguished as dynamite No I. and No. 11. No. I. is composed of 75 per cent, of nitro-glycerine and 2.1 per cent, of the infusorial earth kiesclguhr ; No. 11. of 18 per cent, of nitro-glycerine and 82 per cent, of a pulverised preparation composed of nitrate of potash, charcoal, and paraffin ; a mixture introduced to replace gunpowder in coal- working where dynamite No. 1 was too powerful, but now, as Colonel Majendie tells us, practically non-existent owing to its want of commercial success. In every ton of dynamite that leaves Mr. Nobel's factory in Adeer, in Ayrshire, there are l'l.l tons of highly concentrated nitric acid, 2 tons of extra strong sulphuric acid, '.) cwts. of glycerine—these three forming the nitro-glycsrino — and 5 owts. of the inert base, dried kicselgnhr. The history of nitro-glycerine, the chief ingredient of dynamite, may be briefly sketched. From the divys of Schwartz of Goilfir, in Brunswick, the Cordelier friar of 1320, to whom tho invention of gunpowder is generally attributed, to the end of tho last century, nothing to compare with it as an explosive was discovered. That anoient mixture, as has been often pointed out, possesses «. power of adapting itself to purposes of the most yriried nature that is truly admirable. "In a mine, it blasts without propelling ; in a gun, it propels without blasting ; in a shell, it serves both purposes combined ; in a fuse, as in fireworks, it burns slowly without exploding. Its pressure exercised in those numerous operations varies \ between one ounce, more or lent, to the equare inch, in a fuse, and 8.1,000 lbs. to the square inch in a shell." It is because, useful in all departments, it yet lacks perfection in each, that modern science is gradually encroaching on its old domain. The end of the last century marked the opening era of modern chemistry. It has been considered by many actually to date from the illustrious chemical philosopher Lavoimer, murdered by the Revolutionists in 17111, of whom Professor Wurtz once wrote, " Chemistry is a French science. It was founded by Lavoisier, of immortal memory " — a hasty utterance which, coming as it did just before the outbreak of the FrancoPrussian war, is believed by scientists to have thrown much additional bitterness into that tsrrible struggle. To Lavoisier, at any rate (on whose behalf the chemist Loysel interceding, he was auawered by the Revolutionary tribunal, " The Republic has no need of philosophers "), is due our modern theory of oombustion, and from his time dates the discovery of that powerful but dangerous olaBs of explosives, the picrates, chlorates, and fulminates ; a class so powerful and so dangerous that instances of their use are rare. It waa one of them, probably a chlorate, that caused the explosion at Bremerhaven in December, 1870, when the clockwork contrived by the miccreant Thomas having prematurely struck, as the paokage containing it was being carried from the quay, the scattered fragments spread death and mutilation among more than a hundred of the bystanders. The unmanageable activity of these explosives made them practical lj useless ; and although, soon after its disoovery, an attempt was made to substitute chlorate of potash for the nitrate in gunpowder, the liability of tho new compound to explode by slight friction completely barred its use. Between 1838, when Pelouze discovered gun-cotton— cotton steeped in equal parts of nitric and Bulphurio acid, and dried —and 181(5, when Professor Sohonbein of Baslo began to make practical application of the discovery, there followed a period of comparative chemical inactivity ; but in 1817, among a number of other mixtures of 1 the kind, an Italian named Sobrero, an

assistant in Pelouze's laboratory, lighted on nitro-glycerine. Nitro-glyoerine is a very pale yellow oily liquid, about half as heavy again as water. It has no smell, but a sweet aromatic ta«te, and though it is not in a strict sensu poisonouc, since, even when absorbed in the blood, it has never been known to be fatal to Ufa, yet a single drop placrd on the tongue will almost immediately producn a violent headache; even the handling it, hofore the dynamite cartridges were in 1870 wrapped in parchment, would do tho sumo. The " dynamite headache " ia a disordor very well known in the traJe, more painful in intensity, we are assured, than tho worde form of rack due to the wor3t charnpagnp. It is an affection for which, with many, time and custom aro no remedy ; for, like Nelson, who was always nick his first three days at sea, Sir Frederick Abel, the well-known chemist to the War Ofiice, never even now, hardened experimentalist aa one would imagine him by thi3 time to be, touches tho compound without suffering from it. Nitio- glycerine is simply a cold mixture of one part of nitric acid and three parts of sulphuric acid (introduced to make the nitric acid more active), treated with the glycerine which most persons who havo had chapped hands or have eaten honey are familiar with. Glycerine is obtained in large quantities aa a secondary product of the manufacture of soap and candles from our common fats, and consists ohemically of 39*1 per cent, of oarbon, 8 - 7 per cent, of hydrogen, and 52-2 per cent, of oxygon. Poured m a thin Bticam into the strong nitric acid, whose activity rasanwhile has been doveloped by the sulphuric acid, part of the hydrogen displaced and peroxide of nitrogen substituted for it. When the proper proportion of glycerine has been introduced, the mixture being stirred during tho addition and the temperature kept down by a Burrounding of ice, the whole ia poured into water, when the nitro glycerine, being muoh heavier than tho dilute acid mixture, sinks to tha bottom. The acid liquid is then poured off and more water added, for the nitro-glycerine has to bo purified by long-continued washing, special mechanical appliances and alkaline water being employed for the purpose. There is the whole process, and it ia one moat people, if they do not object to running the risk of penal servitude, are capable of carrying through. A licence for manufacture is required from Government, but tho aoid3 and glycerine can be bought at tho chemist's and mixed in a washhand-basin, the only part that domands care being tho washing out of the free acids, as they are called, for should any of them remain, the whole ia liable to decomposition and spontaneous combustion ; in fact, tho compound's ultimate explosion in that state is chiefly a question of time. When it is remembered that in the notorious Whiteheads house at Birmingham, the only detected instance of illegal manufacture, there wore found in April last year something more than 230 lbs. of nitro-glycerine, left in a carboy in a room behind the shop, and floating on the mixture of strong acids used in its manufacture, in so grossly impure a condition that the time of explosion might at any moment arrive and the house be wrecked, the fearlessness and devotion with which this terrible compound was handled, was washed free of the acids, and, by the addition of kiexclquhr, converted into dynamite, and subsequently burnt, afford as striking and unrewarded an instance of civil courage as the annals of peace can well present. It was nitro-glycerine, too, in a like condition, hovering so to speak on the verge of explosion, that was carried from Birmingham to London by some of Whiteheads confederates in waterproof bags, and ultimately seized by the police and destroyed at Woolwich. This great power in the hands of ignorant men also implies great danger was never more dearly instanced than in this porterage of 270 lbs. of the most dangerous explosive the world has jet produced, liable, in addition to the chance of spontaneous combustion, to being at any moment exploded by a jar or a blow on the crowded platform, or a fall from the cabman's shoulder as he parried the portmanteau containing it upstairs. For sixteen or seventeen years after its discovery in 1847, nitro-glycerino attracted but slight attention, and, owing in a great measure to the difficulty of exploding it with any certainty, was looked upon merely as a chemical curiosity. For, explosive in the highest degree as it certainly is, in its pure form it requires the fulfilment of certain special conditions for the development of ite force which were not at that time clearly understood. We are told, indeed, that tho flame of an ordinary match, though it does not appear to be by any means a favourite experiment with chemists, can be quonched in it without harm, nor nnder ordinary circumstances will any small applied light ignite it. But a smart blow or a strong vibrating jar was often found to do tho work that fire could not effect. Then the molecule of nitro-glycerine is broken up, the oxygen combines with the carbon and the hydrogen, and sets free the nitrogen in the form of a smokeless but fearfully destructive gas, a gas that compared with that yiolded by the solid grains of gunpowder ia estimated as three times as great in volume, freed almost a hundred times as rapidly. In partial explanation of this greater volume of gas and rapidity of action, which, when produced by detonation, is calculated at the rate of 200 miles a minute, it will not be overlooked that nitro-glycerine n a liquid in which all the molecules are in absolute contact, and of which the atoms composing the molecules are placed in the most favourablo position for developing their power; while with gunpowder, a mechanical mixture, whose chemical decomposition has to work from partiolo to particle, instead of the whole mass, as with nitro-glycorine, being instantaneously oonverted into vapour, there is necessarily time lost in the prooeas of breaking up, and an appreciable interval for the atoma of oxygen to go in quest of and combine with the atoms of carbon. (To he Continued.)