DYNAMITE. 
371 
and its remaining stationary in North Wales is owing only to the circumstance that the 
manufacture and sale of the article has not been, in this country, as in Sweden, an 
organized business. 
The workmen in Wales pay for the material, which they consume, the price of 3s. 3af. 
per pound, while gunpowder costs only 4^r/., and if they continue to do so for years it 
proves that they derive a benefit from its use. Still a slate quarry is far from showing 
it at its greatest advantage, which can only become promineut in hard rock. 
Whatever success nitro-glyceriue has realized, it will certainly be admitted that it is 
not due to popular favour. No improvement has ever worked its way under a more 
crushing weight of opposition, and the very fact of its having stood it, is perhaps the 
best proof of its valuable properties. Gun-cotton, which has been repeatedly pushed for 
more than twenty years, has not been used for blasting in all that time as much as nitro¬ 
glycerine in six months. Why? because the miners had no advantage at all in using it. 
In mentioning gun-cotton, it is but just to state that it has been highly improved of 
late by Professor Abel, I believe, and is sold now in a condensed state, in which it forms 
a good blasting agent, and ranks as such next to dynamite. Only a few years ago the 
attempts which I witnessed to make gun-cotton, take the place of gunpowder appeared 
to me to be perfectly fruitless. Bulk for bulk it had less power, and that power was 
even more expensive than the powder which it was meant to supersede. A new ex¬ 
plosive cannot be introduced when the economical advantages are on the wrong side; 
and is next to impossible to get adopted by miners unless the advantages are very great 
and of a payable nature. But compressed gun-cotton is decidedly superior to gunpowder 
as a blasting agent; and if it cannot compete with dynamite, it is only because the manu¬ 
facturing cost of the latter is less, while it possesses at least three times more power, 
and effects a far greater saving of labour. Details are only a matter of time and im¬ 
provement, while the intrinsic merits of a substance decide the place which it is to 
occupy. 
Nitro-glycerine has of late been prohibited in Belgium. It is of no consequence now 
that a substitute of equal power and greater safety has been found, but, as a legislative 
measure, it is remarkable for its absurdity. It was issued by the Minister of Commerce 
immediately after the late accident at Quenast. The cause of that accident is unknown, 
and even if it should have been of such a nature as to render a prohibition desirable, it 
is quite unwarrantable to proceed without careful inquiry. Steam has caused plenty of 
accidents, and it is a wonder that philanthropic governments have not prohibited its use. 
They seem entirely to forget that every article, if it has some drawbacks, is capable of 
improvement, which is necessarily stopped by giving it the death-blow of prohibition. 
It is entirely opposed to the spirit of our age, and can only be looked upon as a useless 
and troublesome muzzle on our liberty of action. 
In Sweden, also, a prohibition has lately been issued against nitro-glycerine, which, 
by many persons in this country, I understand, has been mistaken as referring also to 
dynamite. Such is not the case. The latter substance has simply been subjected to 
the same regulation as gunpowder, and that only, as it is plainly stated, until its pro¬ 
perties have become better known, so as fully to warrant a more liberal legislation. 
Prohibitions, as a rule, are as little liked in Sweden as here, but in this instance it was 
issued at the instigation of the Stockholm Nitro-glycerine Company, and only with a 
view to greater safety, since the new explosive, dynamite, is considered fully equal to 
take its place. 
For my part, I would never have petitioned for such a prohibition, there being some¬ 
thing revolting to me in these forced leading-strings. It is very likely that the miners 
who have got used to nitro-glycerine, and have yet a little schooling to go through 
before they find out that dynamite is fully its equal, will raise a strong opposition against 
the measure, and I should not wonder if the Government was forced to withdraw it. 
I know nothing, with the exception of, perhaps, a liability to spontaneous combustion, 
which could possibly warrant the absolute prohibition of a substance. Now as for 
nitrated organic compounds in general, it is a decidedly erroneous notion that there is 
any such drawback attached to them. That notion has sprung up in laboratories, 
because the chemist has no suitable means at hand for thoroughly neutralizing the 
adhering acid. It is well known that the continued action of nitric acid decomposes 
nearly every organic compound. It is therefore clear that unless nitrated compounds 
are rid of adhering nitric acid they will decompose in course of time. Hence we read 
