Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/344

 336 FEDERAL REPORTER. �of rendering it safe, to pour wood spirits or wood naptha into the nitro-glycerine, and this I did, making large quantities of this mixture. Nobel insisted that this was the only safe mix- ture, and claimed that nitro-glycerine, to be rendered safe, must be retained in its liquid condition. He would not listen to representations I made to him that I was convincifd, and Buch conviction had been verified by long and careful experi- ment, that nitro-glycerine, absorbed by some solid substance, cleansed of ail impurities that would decompose it, would, in powder form, be a useful, efficient and safe explosive; and, when I told him of my experimenta with sawdust, he lidiculed them and my projects as well, and insisted that I should refrain from making any such mixtures for the future, stating that it was ail nonsense, that nitro-glycerine must be retained in its liquid form, that the admixture with wood spirits was the only safe one, and that any admixture with or absorption of nitro-glycerine by a solid substance rendered it even more dangerous than if left in its natural, i. e., liquid condition." Dittmar continued his experiments, mixing nitro-glycerine with inexplosive incombustible substances, principally with infusorial earth. He did not explode them in any drill or rock holes, but fired them by means of a copper sheil or cap, with fuse attached, the shell being charged with a strong ful- minate and plaoed upon the mixture to be fired. The fuse exploding the fulminate, the jar caused thereby detonated the charge. Nobel often saw the compounds Dittmar was exper- imenting upon and the mixtures he was making, and Dittmar often, about the beginningof September, 1866, conversed with Nobel upon the subject of those experiments, the materials he was using, and the purpose he was seeking to attain. After Dittmar had perfected some of his first experimental mixtures of charcoal and nitro-glycerine, Winckler tried them at the mines and reported favorably on them, and then for the first time Nobel evinced some interest in Dittmar's experiments. Dittmar buUt a furnace and experimented with infusorial earth in quantities, mixed with nitro-glycerine. Nobel pre- tended not to notice what Dittmar was making there, never came in to look at the furnace, was not pleased with anythin^ ��� �