A POWDER-MILL EXPLOSION. 235 



remember, the detonation and concussion were felt and heard distinctly 

 and severely in Philadelphia and in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 

 some thirty miles away, while they were scarcely noticed in Wil- 

 mington. 



The sound and shock of these explosions must be strikingly similar 

 to those of an earthquake. A few years since — it was on the very day 

 that Chicago was burning — a severe shock of an earthquake was felt 

 in Wilmington, Del., and its vicinity. It is described to me, by those 

 who experienced it, as peculiarly alarming. The concussion was ter- 

 rific, shaking the houses, opening doors, disturbing furniture, and the 

 boom of the report was exceedingly loud and startling. In an instant 

 all instinctively sprang to their western windows, and almost at once on 

 every accessible roof spectators were gazing toward the northwest, the 

 direction in which the Dupont powder-works are situated. The univer- 

 sal impression was, that there had been an explosion of unusual vio- 

 lence at those works. It was only when, after a time, no column of 

 smoke was seen to rise, that any other explanation was suggested. 

 The noise and the concussion were precisely like what had often been 

 heard before on such an occasion. 



The pervasive character of the sound and the shock in both the 

 earthquake and the explosion of a powder-magazine are probably due 

 to the same cause. They are propagated along the line of rocky 

 strata. A continuous stratum of rock extends from the Brandy wine to 

 Philadelphia and its neighborhood, and this gives an obvious explana- 

 tion to the fact, to which allusion has already been made, that the de- 

 tonation and concussion are heard quite as distinctly as, and sometimes 

 more so, at a distance, than, at a point nearer at hand. 



I was curious to witness the effects of an explosion at the place 

 where it occurred, so I set out at once for it. A great concourse was 

 thronging the avenue leading toward the powder-mills, and dotting the 

 fields which lay between them and the city. There was no time to be 

 lost in hiring a vehicle ; so, giving some specimens of tall pedestrianism, 

 learned of yore in the streets of New York, I was soon in advance of 

 the crowd, and, in company with a young and wiry Scotchman, whom 

 I could not outwalk, was over the beautiful hills and through the 

 woods which skirt the Brandywine, and at the place. 



It was difficult, indeed, as I think of it now after some years, quite 

 impossible, to realize what had taken place not an hour before. The 

 day was at its noon, and the lovely valley was sleeping in quiet beauty. 

 All was perfectly still, with nothing to suggest the terrible occurrence, 

 except it might be those two or three rounded heaps yonder, over 

 which a white canvas sheet was thrown. Under them lay the poor 

 mutilated remains of what a little while ago were stalwart men. It 

 was not good for loved one or stranger to look upon them now ! 



What struck me more than any thing else was the peculiar air of 

 cleanliness and order that was over the place. Every thing, trees, 



