CORRESP ONDENCE. 



265 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



SAFETY IN THE MANUFACTURE OF HIGH 

 EXPLOSIVES. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



SIR: The article in Number 180, "Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly," from the pen of 

 Professor L. R. F. Griffin, is a somewhat 

 marked instance of the freedom with which 

 some authors are willing to assume the re- 

 sponsibility of becoming instructors of the 

 public upon topics of interest by expression 

 of authoritative opinion based upon observa- 

 tion of a single phenomenon. 



That Professor Griffin has taken this po- 

 sition is clearly indicated, not alone by his 

 erroneous statements of the properties of 

 explosives, but by the freedom with which 

 he charges ignorance on the part of the 

 manufacturers and owners of the explosives 

 stored near Chicago, the explosion of part 

 of which he makes the subject of his ar- 

 ticle. 



Inquiry would doubtless have convinced 

 him that the methods he characterizes as 

 " very strange," are those which the expe- 

 riences of manufacturers, many of whom 

 are skillful, intelligent, and highly educated, 

 who have had added to their own personal 

 experience the experience of generations of 

 predecessors for their guidance, have taught 

 them to be safest of which we have knowl- 

 edge. That all methods now in use are the 

 best possible, no one would be so bold as to 

 maintain, but the manufacture of so staple 

 articles as gunpowder, and its recent substi- 

 tute, dynamite, could not be long success- 

 fully conducted by ignorant persons while 

 so many highly intelligent men with neces- 

 sary capital at command are ever ready to 

 avail themselves of the opportunity for com- 

 mercial success that would be thus offered ; 

 and had Professor Griffin sought informa- 

 tion on the subject he treats, from those 

 who have life and large capital staked upon 

 the issue of intended skillful control of 

 explosives during manufacture, transporta- 

 tion, and while stored for distribution and 

 sale, he might easily have avoided the pub- 

 lication of errors that are obvious to a great- 

 er number of readers than he may have sup- 

 posed. 



Nitro-glycerine is not " commonly ab- 

 sorbed in Richmond infusorial earth," 

 when compounded into what is then known 

 as dynamite, and it is doubtful if, of the 

 millions of pounds of dynamite annually 

 made and sold in the United States, there 

 are one thousand pounds made by the use 

 of infusorial earth ; and it would practically 



be impossible to find offered for sale by any 

 manufacturer or dealer any dynamite, in 

 the compounding of which earth or any 

 other inert matter had been used. 



Nitro-glycerine is absorbed and made 

 into dynamite not " for convenience," but 

 solely for safety, and in order to make it 

 commercially practicable to transport from 

 place of production to place of consumption 

 in a form that it may be used nitro-glyc- 

 erine, which, as such, no transportation com- 

 pany would receive into its custody. 



Any manufacturer of gunpowder who 

 built a magazine depending upon "strong 

 walls and a very light roof" to prevent 

 damage in case of accidental explosion, 

 must have intended to store only a very 

 small quantity, or have been fortunate 

 enough never to have seen or known of the 

 disastrous results of any such futile attempt 

 to restrain or direct the force of the explo- 

 sion of any quantity such as is usually so 

 stored. Where conditions of the absence 

 of exposure to possible fire, or to the acts 

 of ignorant trespassers would permit, a light 

 frame structure would invariably be chosen 

 for storage of gunpowder. The different 

 properties of dynamite demand structures of 

 a material that will resist or diminish the 

 speed of a stray bullet ; but the less resist- 

 ance from the building within which any 

 accidental explosion may occur, the less 

 will be the damage to surrounding property 

 either by atmospheric effect or by flying 

 missiles. 



The simplest knowledge of the proper- 

 ties of dynamite would have prevented Pro- 

 fessor Griffin from attributing the non-ex- 

 plosion of other magazines in the vicinity 

 to the fact of their being beyond the " lim- 

 its where displacement would not appear " 

 referring to the bodily mass of air ; and 

 personal presence in the immediate vicinity 

 of a number of accidental explosions of 

 either gunpowder or dynamite would prob- 

 ably induce him to change his opinion that 

 "the mass bodily displaced must be con- 

 fined within comparatively narrow limits." 



To correct the manifest errors in this 

 short article would require many times the 

 space it occupies, and be less gratification 

 to curiosity than the article itself ; and it 

 would seem to have been rather curiosity 

 than desire for investigation or instruction 

 that was inspired in the mind of the author 

 by the explosion of which he has written. 

 Yours truly, A. 0. Fay. 



Xbnia, Ohio, March 29, 1S37. 



