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

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Reflecting as a chemist upon these explosions, that here was a compound made at Hamburgh, carted to the wharf, loaded on board steamer by the stevedores, voyaging to London, reshipped to Panama, the express portion of it forwarded across the Isthmus by railway, thence lightered to and loaded upon the steamer, bearing twelve days’ voyage to San Francisco, where on arrival it is taken to the express office, previous to being forwarded to the mines; now how did it happen, since there is no effect without a cause, after all this handling that an explosion took place? Determined to solve this problem, I undertook the preparation and qualitative examination of Nitro-Glycerin. Residing at that time at Titusville in the oil region of Pennsylvania, where the disastrous results of speculations in oil territory during the previous year, compelled most of us to “masterly inactivity,” I had the leisure, whilst my curiosity was piqued to discover, the apparently anomalous properties which this explosive seemed to present, and in 1866, after maturing the process patented April 7, 1868, I inserted a brief advertisement in the Scientific American, offering to manufacture Nitro-Glycerin on a large scale for miners and others. In 1866, I received a communication from Thomas A. Doane, Esq., chief engineer of the Hoosac Tunnel, who was keenly alive to the necessity of more efficient means for driving that work. I extract from his annual report to the Commissioners of the Troy and Greenfield Railroad and Hoosac Tunnel, James M. Shute, Alvah Crocker and Charles Hudson, dated Dec. 19, 1866, and having reference to the work of the current year, as follows: