“Yes, but nothing to dynamite, for while powder only bursts things, dynamite shatters them.”
“How very dreadful! What is dynamite?”
“That is just what I am about to explain,” said I. “You must know, then, that it is a compound.”
“Dear, dear,” sighed my mother; “how many compounds you have told me about, Jeff, since you took to chemistry! Are there no uncompounded things—no simple things in the world?”
“Why, yes, mother; you are a simple thing, and I only wish there were a good many more simple things like you in the world—”
“Don’t be foolish, Jeff, but answer my question.”
“Well, mother, there are indeed some simple elements in creation, but dynamite is not one of them. It is composed of an excessively explosive oil named nitro-glycerine (itself a compound), and an earth called kieselguhr. The earth is not explosive, and is only mixed with the nitro-glycerine to render that liquid less dangerous; but the compound is named dynamite, in which form it is made up and sold in immense quantities for mining purposes. Here is some of it,” I added, pulling from my pocket a cartridge nearly two inches in length, and about an inch in diameter. “It is a soft, pasty substance, done up, as you see, in cartridge-paper, and this little thing, if properly fired, would blow a large boulder-stone to atoms.”
“Bless me, boy, be careful!” exclaimed my mother, pushing back her chair in some alarm.
“There is no danger,” I said, in reassuring tones, “for this cartridge, if opened out and set on fire by a spark or flame, would not, in the first place, light readily, and, in the second place, it would merely burn without exploding; but if I were to put a detonator inside and fire it by means of that, it would explode with a violence that far exceeds the force of gunpowder.”
“And what is this wonderful detonator, Jeff, that so excites the latent fury of the dynamite?”