February 19, 1870.
Sinking the Central Shaft.
Evidence of H. Julius Smith.
“I am engaged in the business of manufacturing electric fuses and introducing explosive compounds to contractors, miners and torpedo men. I have carefully examined the patents in question re-issued to Tal. P. Shaffner, and, I find, by the modes therein described, it is impossible to fire with certainty, and simultaneously, more than two mines charged with Nitro-Glycerin by any of the methods described in said four re-issued patents; and to effect any explosion of Nitro-Glycerin by any of the methods therein described, and materials delivered to the public by the assignees of the inventor Nobel, it is absolutely essential that the Nitro-Glycerin should be confined as described in the re-issues in question. I have also carefully examined the patent issued to George M. Mowbray, dated July 27th, 1869, and find that the process therein described of exploding Nitro-Glycerin, does away with the necessity for confining Nitro-Glycerin in order to explode it. I endorse previous evidence from my own experience in regard to exploding Nitro-Glycerin when unconfined under Mowbray’s system. I have also manufactured and delivered upward of twenty thousand fuses to the contractors of the Hoosac Tunnel, capable of exploding Nitro-Glycerin when unconfined, at said Hoosac Tunnel. I have been present when the modes described in the re-issues of the Nobel patent have been carefully practised, and entirely failed to fire Nitro-Glycerin, and in one instance immediately after the failure of the Nobel system, I inserted a fuse of the exact description, and with the electric appliances as described in Geo. M. Mowbray’s patent, No. 93,113, dated July 27th, 1869, and the result was a successful explosion. The modes described in the Nobel re-issues, Nos. 3,377, 3,378, 3,379 and 3,380, have been abandoned by all parties with whom I am acquainted, who have important works to carry through, requiring Nitro-Glycerin to be exploded, and particularly by the said Tal. P. Shaffner himself, as I have manufactured, sold and delivered to said Shaffner and others, the apparatus and the exploding electrical fuses for firing Nitro-Glycerin made by said Shaffner, and Nitro-Glycerin made by the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Company, which said fuses or electrical exploders, involve a principle of firing Nitro-Glycerin of great practical importance and very recent development, viz., the principle of concussion, so as to effect the explosion of the entire mass of Nitro-Glycerin instantaneously, without requiring the explosion to be transmitted from particle to particle, in this respect differing very materially from the methods described in the Nobel re-issues above referred to, which require, first, confinement, and then heat and pressure, to be developed in the presence of the Nitro-Glycerin.”
H. Julius Smith.
February 24, 1870.
Evidence of James H. King.
“I am one of the proprietors of the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Works, situated near Painesville, Ohio. I am personally acquainted with Taliaferro P. Shaffner, and endorse all the evidence of G. M. Mowbray as to Shaffner’s proposal to consolidate the Nobel and Mowbray patents, and his admission that the parties he represented did not claim the exclusive right to manufacture Nitro-Glycerin. I would state that one W. B. Roberts, of the firm of Roberts & Co., of Titusville, Pennsylvania, informed me that he is one of the Trustees of the United States Blasting Oil Company, and that since the commencement of this suit I have delivered to Roberts & Co., at request of W. B. Roberts, twelve hundred pounds, or thereabouts, of Nitro-Glycerin manufactured by the company of which I am a member.
“I manufacture (as a party interested in the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Works of Painesville) under a license from George M. Mowbray, under a patent to said Mowbray, bearing date April 7th, 1868.”