Dynamite

or giant powder, a preparation much used in blasting. The bursting or disruptive force of dynamite is about eight times that of gunpowder. It was invented by Nobel in 1866. It consists of some absorbent material soaked to its full capacity with nitroglycerin, and is designed to be safer in carriage and use. The best absorbent is a fine, white floury earth found in Hanover, which absorbs and renders safe about three times its own weight of nitroglycerin. The mixture resembles heavy brown sugar in appearance. It is molded into cartridges or sticks, and is coated with paraffine paper. It is safe against ordinary dropping and jars, but can be exploded by a sudden shock and flash like that produced by a percussion cap. It is difficult to explode frozen dynamite. Dynamite is used by the farmer in blasting out stumps, and by the miner in ledges. A stick of dynamite exploded in a hole drilled into a ledge will do the work of many men. Without dynamite railroad tunnels could be constructed only at enormous expense. In 1909 the engineers of the Lackawanna Railway reported that 5,000,000 pounds of dynamite would be required in blasting the way for a twenty-eight mile cut-off. In such a case the dynamite is made near the spot. In 1867, the year after its invention, eleven tons of dynamite were made. Now over 50,000 tons are made yearly in the United States alone. There are large factories in the hills east of San Francisco Bay. The largest dynamite factory in the world is near Ardeer, Scotland. Dynamite is sold at retail at from twelve to twenty cents a pound. Life insurance companies rank the manufacture of dynamite as the most hazardous occupation in the world. See Nobel; Nitroglycerin