We were proceeding very cautiously, when all at once the scoop toppled, and an iron weight fell, striking within an eighth of an inch of one of the pieces of glass on which was fulminate of mercury. After a second of suspense, we stared at one another in amazement, wondering whether or not we were still in the land of the living.
An investigation into the cause of the accident revealed the fact that one of the young men employed in the laboratory had broken off an arm of the scales—one of the supports of the scoop—the day before, and, with criminal reticence, had made absolutely no mention of the fact to anyone. Had that weight fallen upon the fulminate, it must have dealt death to all of us.
THE SINGULAR GOOD FORTUNE OF A GENTLE ENGLISHMAN
It so happened that during a tour of inspection seven of us were together, going over the works. On entering the guncotton dry-house, I noticed a strong odor of nitric acid.
“Out of here, quick!” I cried. “The place is going to blow up!”
There were perhaps a hundred pounds of dry guncotton in the room at the time, spread out in pans. As was afterward learned, the foreman, being in a hurry for the guncotton, had turned live steam into the pipes instead of circulating hot water through them as instructed.
We were barely out of the room when the guncotton burned with a flash, wrecking the building and setting fire to the fragments. I was just congratulating myself that no one had been injured by the explosion, when it was discovered that one of the party, an Englishman, the even tenor of whose way nothing could accelerate or disturb, and who feared nothing, had not quite made up his mind in time to get out of the room before the flash came. On seeing him emerge at last from the zone of destruction, I was horror-struck, for apparently every hair had been burned from his head and face, while shreds of skin hung from his hands and cheeks and brow.