Читать книгу Tri-nitro-glycerine, as Applied in the Hoosac Tunnel, Submarine Blasting, etc., etc., etc онлайн

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I have been thus explicit in narrating the various details connected with the introduction of Nitro-Glycerin at the Hoosac Tunnel, in order that full justice might be done to the gentlemen whose enterprise and authority were necessary to bear up against the prejudices which the three explosions hereinbefore referred to had caused on the public mind. It is now five years since I commenced, and have with slight intermission, continued, to manufacture this explosive, and during this whole period but two accidents have occurred at my works. The first occurred on the 23rd of December, 1870, to my foreman, who I surmised, in the absence of proof, in removing the clinkers from the heater, may have thrown a red hot coal on to the inflammable floor boards of the magazine, moistened with Nitro-Glycerin spilt during three years use, whilst adding fuel to the parlor stove which warmed it. It is a poor consolation that Mr. Velsor, the foreman, who had been engaged with me during the greater part of the past ten years, had finished his day’s work and was using the magazine for a bath house, probably on account of its seclusion. Universally respected, thoroughly acquainted with the properties of Nitro-Glycerin, careful and untiring, cool, courageous, and without bravado, his superintendence of the factory where thousands of pounds of this explosive were being handled, and in the course of distribution to different points of the United States, was steadily and quietly overcoming the dread of this powerful blasting agent; accompanying me and aiding in the most difficult operations of submarine blasting, in every case without a shadow of accident, lead to one conclusion, that some slip of the hand, failure of a muscle, started a flame, which in a magazine crowded with receptacles for Nitro-Glycerin no human power could arrest, but which I am satisfied, his courageous sense of duty led him to attempt, and thereby sacrificed his valuable life.