30 DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS. 



The scientific -technical studies, to which I now 

 devoted myself with increased ardour, nearly had 

 very serious consequences in the following summer. 

 I had heard that my cousin, the Hanoverian artillery 

 officer A. Siemens, had made some successful experi- 

 ments with friction fuses, which were intended to be 

 used for the firing of canon in place of the hand fuses 

 then exclusively employed. The importance of this 

 discovery was evident to me. and I resolved myself 

 to make experiments in this direction. As the inflam- 

 matory materials employed did not act with sufficient 

 certainty, in the absence of better implements I stirred 

 up together an aqueous solution of phosphorus and 

 chlorate of potash in a pomatum bowl with very thick 

 bottom, and placed the bowl, as I had to go to the 

 drill ground, carefully covered, in a cool window corner. 



When I returned and looked with some anxiety 

 for my dangerous preparation I found it to my satis- 

 faction still in the same corner. But on carefully 

 taking it up and barely touching the match standing 

 in the paste, which had served to stir up the mixture, 

 a violent explosion took place, which hurled the shako 

 from my head and shattered all the window-panes 

 together with their frames. The entire upper part of 

 the porcelain bowl was scattered about the room in 

 the form of fine powder, whilst its stout bottom was 

 wedged firmly into the window sill. 



The cause of this altogether unexpected explosion 

 turned out to be this: that my man on cleaning the 

 room had placed the vessel in the oven, and let it 



