798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



priate to diminish as much as possible the danger of using the new 

 agent ; and, for neglect of the superintendents to give these instructions, 

 the proprietors were required in both cases to pay damages. 



The importance of some education of the working classes on these 

 matters is increased by the frequency with which new explosives are 

 introduced. One, called " explosive jelly," was brought to notice early 

 last summer. It is made by dissolving nitro-glycerine and gun-cotton 

 in ether, and then evaporating the ether ; and it is said to be the most 

 powerful of the nitro-glycerine compounds, though it can be exploded 

 only by a detonator, which fact diminishes danger. A novelty called 

 " dynamoge " is mentioned in late European papers. 



Folly of workmen solves many of this class of disasters. In Saw- 

 yer City, Pennsylvania, a gang of men digging a well were about to 

 set a torpedo for blasting. The foreman, said to have been an intem- 

 perate man, hastily poured two quarts of nitro-glycerine into the 

 shell, and then attempted to fit the cap to its place. It was tight, 

 he gave it an angry blow with his fist, the charge exploded, and five 

 men were killed, three others being badly hurt. Criminal use of dy- 

 namite has been detected in several cases. A Brooklyn man found a 

 dynamite bomb-shell under the stoop of his house, apparently put 

 there in the night by some enemy, and the fuse lighted ; but a 

 friendly rain-storm had extinguished the fuse. In Ohio a workman 

 found a yellowish roll lying lengthwise on one of the rails of the 

 Baltimore and Ohio road. He did not know what it was, but it was 

 tested by the superintendent, and found to be dynamite in sufficient 

 quantity to have blown any train to atoms. It was evidently placed 

 to wreck an express train then nearly due. On the Great Northern 

 Railway in Ireland the guard detected nine pounds of dynamite 

 which a passenger was carrying for some unlawful purpose, and took 

 it from him. In Central America, a merchant was murdered by a 

 new and ingenious use of dynamite. The charge was placed in the 

 large lock of his store-door, with the exploder arranged to be set off! 

 by the door-key. He was instantly killed on attempting to unlock 

 the door. When such an attempt is successful, the laws are efficient 

 to punish it. But in most of the States the laws are defective in re- 

 gard to mere attempts or plots. The statute books punish shooting 

 at a person or administering poison, although he be not killed or even 

 hurt ; but, perhaps, say nothing about schemes fully as dangerous 

 for destroying life or property by these explosives. Apparently the 

 means are so novel that Legislatures have not had time to think of 

 them. The advice to give instruction on these subjects to school- 

 pupils and workmen should probably be extended to embrace the law- 

 makers of the land. 



There are curious infelicities in the laws as to carrying explosive 

 powders about the country. Cities and towns very generally have or- 

 dinances which restrict carting them through the crowded streets, but 



