Cautions; &c. respecting Fulminating Powders. 169 
strewed through a glass tube of three-fourths of an inch in di- 
ameter, and exploded by a coal of fire or hot iron, the tube may 
be held in the naked hand, and the powder only flashes without 
breaking the tube, and merely coats it over inside, and that very 
prettily, with the revived quicksilver. 
Fulminating Silver. 
Chemists are too well acquainted with the tremendous ener- 
sy of this preparation, to make any comments upon its powers 
necessary. Unhappily, however, it is now made a subject of 
amusement ; it is prepared for sale by those who know nothing 
of it, except as a nostrum, and it is bought by others who have 
hot even this degree of knowledge. It is true, it is put up in 
small quantities, in the little toys called torpedoes, and, if ex- 
ploded one by one, they will ordinarily do no harm; but as they 
fall into the hands of childrén, we can never be secure that they 
will be discreetly used. 
Avery severe accident, from the unexpected explosion of 
this substance, occurred some years since, in the laboratory of 
Yale College, (See Bruce’s Journal, Vol. I. p. 163.) And, 
notwithstanding that this occurrence was well known in New- 
‘aven, the same accident, only under a severer form, has again. 
occurred in that town. 
A man who had bought the secret of making fulminating 
silver, had prepared as much as resulted from the solution of 
one ounce and a half. Apparently, in a great measure, un- 
aware of the nature of the preparation, he had placed it, un- 
mixed with any thing, on an earthern plate, which stood on @ 
‘able; his wife and children being around, he sat down to dis- 
ute the powder upon several papers which he had prepared 
for the purpose; sand and shot are mixed with the powder im 
me pa pers, for the purpose of giving momentum, and of pro- 
ducing attrition when the torpedo is thrown, in order to en- 
~— its explosion. Probably, also, the sand, looking not very 
unlike the powder, may be intended to screen it from view, and 
thus to Preserve the secret, should the papers be opened. The 
unhappy man no sooner touched the fulminating silver with a 
Vou. L....No. 2, 
ps) 
