MODERN EXPLOSIVES. 799 



these do not apply to long journeys. Before railroad days it was well 

 understood that Congress controlled carriage of dangerous articles by 

 water, for to regulate navigation was early understood to be a duty 

 of -the Federal Government. But in those days nitro-glycerine was 

 unknown, and the fulminates were little used. Hence both were ig- 

 nored in the early laws of Congress regulating water-carriage of dan- 

 gerous articles, which mentioned only gunpowder and acids, and the 

 like. Recently it has been thought that the authority of Congress 

 extends to railroad-trains running from State to State, for this is a 

 branch of "commerce among the States." When Congress came, in 

 1868, to legislate as to carrying nitro-glycerine and its compounds, 

 the law was made to apply equally to vessels, and to railroads extend- 

 ing from one State to another. But no one has noticed that the old 

 laws as to gunpowder ought equally to be extended to through rail- 

 road-trains. Apparently there is no Federal law prescribing precau- 

 tions for railroad-carriage of gunpowder across the country, and yet, 

 according to the most advanced views, the States have not power to 

 pass laws on the subject. Each State has, however, power to say how 

 explosives shall be carried within her own boundaries ; and this leads 

 to another infelicity, which is, that the law of the Union and of a 

 State may clash. For example, United States law requires the blast- 

 ing-powders made from nitro-glycerine, and the oil itself, to be packed 

 and labeled in a peculiar way, when they are to be sent by rail from 

 one State to another. The law of Colorado imposes restriction on 

 nitro-glycerine, but, as amended last summer, for the convenience of 

 the miners, it exempts dynamite and other powders. Now, if a train 

 in Colorado should be wrecked by explosion of dynamite in the 

 loading, the victims will not derive much comfort from being told 

 that the offending keg did not come from the eastward States, and 

 so was not subject to the United States rule, but was put aboard 

 at Denver. Whatever restriction is needful ought to be imposed 

 by Federal and State laws alike, and for short journeys as well as 

 upon long. 



The subject of dynamite is "a cloud with a silver lining" the 

 topic has its lighter aspects. One journal narrates that workmen, em- 

 ployed in blasting, left about a hundred pounds of dynamite exposed 

 in an open box. Two cows of a neighboring farmer drew near, looked, 

 smelled, tasted, and, finding that the compound had a saltish flavor, 

 began to regale themselves heartily : in a moment those cows were 

 staggering without heads. At a certain military post there was a 

 mule who had " outlived his usefulness," also a commanding general 

 who desired to experiment in instantaneous photography. The animal 

 was placed in position before a camera, his forehead bearing a cot- 

 ton bag containing six ounces of dynamite; the slide of the camera 

 was supported by a fuse, and this fuse and the dynamite were con- 

 nected in the same electrical circuit, by wires leading to a battery 



