800 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



placed at a safe distance. On pressing the key so as to send the elec- 

 tricity through the wires, both fuse and dynamite were fired simulta- 

 neously, and the camera slide fell so quickly after the mule's head 

 vanished, that a good photograph was taken of the creature, standing 

 headless, before its body had had time to fall. Shocking to the mule ; 

 but entertaining and instructive to the class of military students which 

 assembled to witness the experiment. More shocking, perhaps, is a 

 device reported from the Southwest, called " the torpedo-chicken." It 

 looks like a chicken, and sits like one on the roost among live fowl. 

 But when, at about midnight, the hand of the chicken-thief of the 

 region grasps it, a catch is thrown out of place, a powerful spring 

 moves, a hammer strikes a percussion cap, there is an explosion, and 

 about four ounces of bird-shot are thrown in every direction. The 

 finale is said to be that a dusky figure is seen running or limping down 

 the alley, and a husky voice is heard : " Fo' de Lawd ! but what has 

 de white folks got hold of now ? " The scientific accuracy of this de- 

 scription will be appreciated, when the reader learns that it is from 

 the " Detroit Free Press." Evidently, here is a hint to inventors : 

 what a variety of burglar-alarms, thief-catchers, and other detective 

 devices may be developed ! The account circulated a year or two ago, 

 of the newly invented trunk, fitted with pockets of nitro-glycerine at 

 the corners, which might operate by way of reward of merit for any 

 super-active baggage-smasher, is but a forerunner. 



One would suppose that the various forms of ordnance would be 

 managed with peculiar skill and care, yet they give rise to many dis- 

 asters. A workman intrusted with packing seventy-five thousand per- 

 cussion-caps in boxes handled them roughly ; they exploded, and he 

 was killed. Another, who was charging a rocket in the ordnance 

 fulminate-room at a navy-yard, was killed, his companions severely 

 hurt, and the inner walls of the building demolished by a premature 

 discharge. Several men were badly hurt by a like disaster, in the 

 course of loading cartridges with fulminate, at the factory of the 

 "Winchester Repeating Arms Company, in New Haven. A bomb-shell 

 was sent among a quantity of old iron to a foundry in Brooklyn to 

 be melted ; but it was loaded, and within a few minutes after it was 

 thrown into the furnace there was a disastrous explosion. The sad- 

 dest case of the kind narrated during the summer is that in which 

 Lieutenants Edes and Spalding lost their lives at Newport. They 

 were sent to plant a torpedo, and full instructions were given them as 

 to the precautions needful ; but, through some error or neglect on 

 their part, the electrical circuit was prematurely closed, and the tor- 

 pedo fired while they were yet in their boat above it. 



Not half of the casualties reported during the season have been 

 mentioned, nor has anything boon said of the numerous fatalities from 

 bursting of kerosene lamps and cans, of leaky gas-pipes, steam-boilers, 

 revolving stones, inflammable dust, and other things not intended as ex- 



