THE LITHOFEACTEUE. 
153 
jetted, with debris of the planking and timbers, 80 ft. or 90 ft. 
into the air ; in the second the said debris and water boiled up 
over a large area around for very many yards — indeed, for half 
a mile of the river’s surface the stream was covered with 
floating splinters and wreck. The charges were in both cases 
fired with detonators ignited by lengths of from 20 ft. to 50 ft. 
of Bickford and Bennett fuze, both being burning fuzes of the 
same nature. 
There has thus in every case been demonstrated the control 
obtained by chemists and manufacturers over that terrible 
substance nitro-glycerine, which the Grovernment of this country 
was, in a moment of panic, weak enough to taboo, but which, 
now held in the bonds of science, will prove a salvation to life 
and limb in thousands of quarries and mines all over the earth. 
No stronger condemnation of Grovernment interference in matters 
beyond the bounds of politics can possibly be instanced than in 
this particular case. The ban, however, unfortunately is not yet 
removed ; and Englishmen are still debarred the use of those 
explosives which, under all ordinary conditions, merely burn, 
and only explode when purposely detonated under a definite 
and a priori purpose of the user’s will. 
