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That was fun, but it was not half so thrilling as the work I did when we overhauled an engine. Not books but the things themselves were teaching me what I wished to know. Wished? That word is not strong enough to describe my passion to learn about machines and the power that made them run. Concerning all the unfolding forms of magic which were then beginning to transform the continent, I was mad with curiosity.

As there were none in Ellis well enough informed to answer all my questions, I addressed myself in almost every mail to an Eastern oracle, The Scientific American. In that editorial office, whoever received the questions from subscribers must have thought that Walter P. Chrysler was the pen name of a dozen youths, at least half of whom were crazy. Yet many of my questions were answered; if you were a reader of the issue of November 5, in 1892, you may have seen a little of all that seethed in my mind. In that issue this was published:

W. P. C. asks what the Harden hand grenades for extinguishing fires are made of. A.—Hand grenades for extinguishing fires are made by filling thin spherical glass bottles with a solution of calcium chloride, sal ammoniac or borax.