Parties using Nitro-Glycerin are requested to note, that on the 19th of March, 1872, the insolvent U. S. Blasting Oil Company (by the aid of funds drawn, under litigation also, from the Oil producers of Pennsylvania, by the notorious torpedo patents), finding their twenty-four columns of specification and eight claims wholly inapplicable to the mode of using Nitro-Glycerin as now practised, surrendered their re-issues, and, as I am of opinion, by the injudicious oversight of the Examiner, an intimate friend of Mr. Shaffner, obtained four more re-issues, containing twenty columns of specification and seventeen claims, thereby, as eminent counsel advise me, practically abandoning their case up to March 19, 1872.
Counsel further advise me, after full consideration of these last re-issues, that the litigation has entered upon a new phase, and that the original patent, the first re-issues, and the second re-issues, contain in themselves the proof of their utter worthlessness, needing no other evidence to render them void. But a graver and more serious charge rests upon the means by which these anomalies have been put on record in the Patent Office, which will be reviewed by experienced counsel, before a competent tribunal.
For myself, with resources which I hope and intend to keep unimpaired, to conduct this business to its final issue, with a pecuniary interest I am bound to take care of, besides a further amused interest, aroused during the past four years, by the shifts and pretences of this impecunious company to avoid trial of a suit instituted by itself, there will be a courteous desire to accommodate my opponents with the earliest possible verdict, counsel, judges and jury can arrive at, consistent with a complete, full and fair investigation of plaintiff’s pretences and patents.
CHAPTER VIII.
Hoosac Tunnel—Drilling by Machine—Blasting with Powder—Nitro-Glycerin.
The Hoosac Mountain, whose summit is 2,700 feet above the sea level, is composed, according to the geologist, of mica slate, so compressed that near the West End the stratification is contorted, upheaved, and intermingled with quartz and pyrites; consequently the classification of the rock as “mica slate” conveys a very imperfect idea of its hard impracticable nature to the miner. To any one who will be at the pains of examining the masses lying near the powder magazine, built of massive stone, at the West Shaft, the hardness of this rock is at once apparent. Parts of this mountain have been found so hard and tough, and so difficult to drill, that thirty-four drills have been worn in drilling a blast hole thirty-six inches deep. This was an exceptional case, but similar hard layers are met from time to time. Had it not been for the Burleigh drill and Nitro-Glycerin, the sturdy indomitable perseverance of Massachusetts would have been severely strained, if not exhausted, in running this Tunnel.
The following extract from the Adams Transcript, for April 11, 1872, gives a summary of the progress made during the month of March, and the lengths remaining to be opened to complete the work:
Profile of the Hoosac Mountain, and Advance of Tunnel,
January 1, 1872.