Careers of Danger and Daring

by Cleveland Moffett

I suppose this is only an instance of nature's tendency to furnish always what is needed, to raise up a hero for each emergency; but it is encouraging to know that the very finest kind of courage may be thus developed by the mere pressure of moral responsibility in a man under no master, but free to be a craven if he will. We have seen something like this in the splendid devotion of fire-department chiefs, who often outshine all their men simply because they cannot resist the gallant spirit in their own hearts.

Now for the exception to this rule of persisting courage, an exception sometimes presented in the lives of explosive makers (and in the other lives, too), and showing that in certain cases courage may suddenly and strangely disappear. A man may be brave for years, and then cease to be brave. The wild-beast tamer may awaken some morning and discover himself afraid of his lions. The steeple-climber who has never flinched at any height may shrink at last. The pilot in the rapids, the acrobat on his swing, the diver sinking to a wreck, may feel a quaking of heart unknown before. Here is apparent contradiction, for how can courage be made by habit and then unmade? I don't know. I merely give the facts as I have found them, and it is quite certain that a sturdy Irishman who has shoveled powder all his life and waded in it knee-deep, as if it were so much coal-dust, may, for no reason he can put finger on, find himself lying awake of nights reflecting on what would happen if a spark should strike under one of the big rollers he feeds so carelessly, or, remembering uneasily that dream of his wife's about a white horse—every powder-man knows the close relation between dreams and explosions, and—well, they will all tell you this, that the only thing for a man to do when his heart feels the cold touch of fear is to quit his job. If he doesn't his knell is sounded, he is marked for sacrifice, his tigers will rend him, the deep waters will overwhelm him, a swift fall will crush him—he will surely die.

EFFECTS OF DYNAMITE EXPLODED UNDER WATER.

The greatest catastrophe in the records of powder-making came because a man ignored such plain warning of his own fear. At least, the workmen at the Dupont mills will tell you this if you can get them to break through their usual reserve. The man was William Green, and, whatever his fault, he paid the fullest price for it. Green was stationed in one of the magazines, with the responsibility of sealing up hexagonal powder, a very powerful kind used by the government in heavy guns. This powder comes pressed into little six-sided cakes of reddish color, which are packed in large wooden boxes lined with tin, and it was Green's duty to solder the tin covers tight with a hot iron. In each box there was enough of this powder to blow up a fortress, and it is no wonder the occupation finally told on Green's nerves. He said to his wife that sooner or later a speck of grit would touch his iron and make a spark, and then— The theory is that a spark is required to explode powder which will only burn harmlessly at the touch of a hot iron or a flame.

However this may be (and I should add that the theory is disputed), Green felt that he was in danger, and by that fact, say the powder-men, if for no other reason, he was in danger. And one day—it was October 7, 1890—the spark came; surely that was a most important spark, for it caused the explosion of one hundred and fifty tons of gunpowder, the instant death of thirteen men and one woman, and the serious or fatal injury of twenty-two men and nine women.

Only an earthquake could have wrought such terrible destruction. The city of Wilmington was shaken to its foundations. Great chasms were rent in the solid rock under the exploding magazines. Trees were torn up by the roots. Iron castings, weighing tons, were hurled clean across the Brandywine. Iron columns thick as a man's waist were twisted and bent like copper wire. Horses outside the yards were found with legs missing; men were found stripped clean of their clothes, and this curious fact was developed, that a man or a horse in the region of explosion would have shoes blown from the feet (iron shoes or leather shoes) if the legs were on the ground at the moment of shock, but would keep shoes on if the legs were lifted. Thus poor Green was found with both feet shod, and so identified, although his body had no other stitch of covering, and the explanation was that he probably saw the spark in time to spring away, and was actually in the air when the explosion came.

In my investigations I have heard various stories showing what uncertainty there is as to the behavior of dynamite in the presence of fire. Workmen who handle it constantly in blasting operations say you can put fire to a stick of dynamite without danger, and it will simply burn away in bluish flame. On the other hand, they admit that in every fifty or a hundred sticks there may be one where the touch of fire will bring explosion.

THE EXPLOSION IN THE NEW YORK CITY TUNNEL.