In the year 1866, according to the most trustworthy authorities, dynamite was first made by Alfred Nobel. In speaking of the invention, Adolf Houssaye, the French litterateur, recently said:
It should be remembered that nine-tenths, probably, of the dynamite made is used in peaceful pursuits; in mining, and similar works. Indeed, since its invention great engineering achievements have been accomplished which would have been entirely impossible without it. I do not see, then, much room for doubt that it has on the whole been a great blessing to humanity. Such certainly its inventor regards it. “If I did not look upon it as such,” I heard him say recently, “I should close up all my manufactories and not make another ounce of the stuff.” He is a strong advocate of peace, and regards with the utmost horror the use of dynamite by assassins and political conspirators. When the news of the Haymarket tragedy in Chicago reached him, M. Nobel was in Paris, and I well remember his expressions of horror and detestation at the cowardly crime.
“Look you,” he exclaimed. “I am a man of peace. But when I see these miscreants misusing my invention, do you know how it makes me feel? It makes me feel like gathering the whole crowd of them into a storehouse full of dynamite and blowing them all up together!”
Few people know what dynamite is, though it has attracted a good deal of attention of late, and before considering its use as a mode for political murder it may be well here to give an account of its making.
Nitro-glycerine, although not the strongest explosive known to science, is the only one of any industrial importance, as the others are too dangerous for manufacture. It was discovered by Salvero, an Italian chemist, in 1845. It is composed of glycerine and nitric acid compounded together in a certain proportion, and at a certain temperature. It is very unsafe to handle, and to this reason is to be ascribed the invention of dynamite, which is, after all, merely a sort of earth and nitro-glycerine, the use of the earth being to hold the explosive safely as a piece of blotting-paper would hold water until it was needed. Nobel first tried kieselguhr, or flint froth, which was ground to a powder, heated thoroughly and dried, and the nitro-glycerine was kneaded into it like so much dough. Of course, many other substances are now used, besides infusorial earth, as vehicles for the explosive—saw-dust, rotten-stone, charcoal, plaster of Paris, black powder, etc., etc. These are all forms of dynamite or giant powder, and mean the same thing. When the substance is thoroughly kneaded, work that must be done with the hands, it is molded into sticks somewhat like big candles, and wrapped in parchment paper. Nitro-glycerine has a sweet, aromatic, pungent taste, and the peculiar property of causing a violent headache when placed on the tongue or the wrist. It freezes at 40° Fahrenheit, and must be melted by the application of water at a temperature of 100°. In dynamite the usual proportions are 25 per cent. of earth and 75 per cent. of nitro-glycerine. The explosive is fired by fulminate of silver or mercury in copper caps.
Outside of the French arsenals it is to be doubted if anybody knows anything more about the new explosive, melinite, further than that it is one of the compounds of picric acid—and picric acid is a more frightful explosive than nitro-glycerine. I find in my scrap-book the following excerpt from the London Standard, describing the artillery experiments at Lydd with the new explosive which the British Admiralty has lately been examining. The Standard, after declaring that the experiments are “entirely satisfactory,” says:
The character of the compound employed is said to be “akin to melinite,” but its precise nature is not divulged. We have reason to believe that the “kinship” is very close. The details of the experiments which have lately been conducted at Lydd are known to very few individuals. But it is unquestionable that the results were such as demonstrate the enormous advantage to be gained by using a more powerful class of explosives than that which has been hitherto employed. There could be no mistake as to the destructive energy of the projectiles. Neither was there any mishap in the use of these terrible appliances. The like immunity was enjoyed at Portsmouth. A deterrent to the adoption of violent explosives for war purposes has consisted in the risk of premature explosion. But there is still the consideration that the advantage to be gained far exceeds the risk which has to be incurred. France has not neglected this question, and she is ahead of us. Her chosen explosive is melinite, and with this she has armed herself to an extent of which the British public has no conception. All the requisite materials, in the shape of steel projectiles and the melinite for filling them, have been provided for the French service and distributed so as to furnish a complete supply for the army and the navy. Whatever may be said as to the danger which besets the use of melinite, the French authorities are confident that they have mastered the problem of making this powerful compound subservient to the purposes of war. Concerning the composition of this explosive great secrecy is observed by the French Government, as also with regard to the experiments that are made with it. But Col. Majendie states that melinite is largely composed of picric acid in a fused or consolidated condition. Of the violence with which picric acid will explode, an example was given on the occasion of a fire at some chemical works near Manchester a year ago. The shock was felt over a distance of two miles from the seat of the explosion, and the sound was heard for a distance of twenty miles.
The conduct of the French in committing themselves so absolutely to the use of melinite as a material of war clearly signifies that with them the use of such a substance has passed out of the region of doubt and experiment. Their experimental investigations extended over a considerable period of time, but at last the stage of inquiry gave place to one of confidence and assurance. So great is the confidence of the French Government in the new shell that it is said the French forts are henceforth to be protected by a composite material better adapted than iron or steel to resist the force of a projectile charged with a high explosive. In naval warfare the value of shells charged in this manner is likely to be more especially shown in connection with the rapid-fire guns which are now coming into use. The question is whether the ponderous staccato fire of monster ordnance may not be largely superseded by another mode of attack, in which a storm of shells, charged with something far more potent than gunpowder, will be poured forth in a constant stream from numerous guns of comparatively small weight and caliber.
Combined with rapidity of fire, these shells cannot but prove formidable to an armor-clad, independently of any damage inflicted on the plates. The great thickness now given to ship armor is accomplished by a mode of concentration which, while affecting to shield the vital parts, leaves a large portion of the ship entirely unprotected. On the unarmored portion a tremendous effect will be produced by the quick-firing guns dashing their powerful shells in a fiery deluge on the ship.