Nobel, Alfred Bernard

Alfred Bernard (1833-1896), a Swedish inventor, the inventor of dynamite, the founder of the Nobel Prizes. He was born at Stockholm October 21, 1833, and died at San Remo, Italy, December 10, 1896. At the age of seventeen he was sent to the United States to receive an engineer's training under his famous countryman, John Ericsson, the designer of the Monitor. His father, an inventive man, having moved to St. Petersburg, young Nobel joined him there in 1854. He continued his studies, making himself a master of modern languages and chemistry. He was employed by the Russian government in the preparation of mines and torpedoes, and became superintendent of an explosive and firearms factory on an island in the Neva. In 1862 the Nobels, father and son, began the commercial manufacture of nitroglycerin at Hellenberg, Sweden, in the first factory ever established for the purpose. Two years later a terrible explosion destroyed the works and killed their chemist and a younger brother. The disaster caused the father a paralytic stroke.

Alfred was a man of tremendous energy. He engaged at once in making nitroglycerin on a barge anchored in Lake Malar, and later erected new works in Sweden and in Germany. The frequency of explosions, and especially the loss of a ship and all on board at Aspinwall by the explosion of nitroglycerin in cargo, led to the passage of laws forbidding the transportation of the dangerous explosive. In 1866 Nobel discovered that a fine infusorial earth found in Germany could be soaked with nitroglycerin and be moulded into sticks and bricks quite as explosive and much safer than nitroglycerin in liquid form. This preparation he called dynamite. Later he invented gelatine dynamite and a new explosive known as ballistite.

Nobel was now a famous man. He enlarged his factories in Sweden and Germany and built new ones in Scotland and near San Francisco. Nobel was a natural inventor, rivaling even Edison in this respect. He took out over a hundred patents in England alone. He engaged widely in various enterprises, including the manufacture of heavy cannon. Nobel Brothers, of which firm he was a partner, secured control of the Baku petroleum fields and curbed the ambition of the American Standard Oil Company in that region.

At death Nobel left a found of $9,000,000, the interest on which he directed should be distributed annually in five prizes to the persons who should distinguish themselves as follows:

1 and 2. For the most important discoveries in physics and chemistry. These prizes are to be awarded by the Royal Academy of Science at Stockholm.

3. For the most important discovery in medicine. This prize to be awarded by the Caroline Medical Institute of Stockholm.

4. For the most important work in realistic literature. Awarded by the Swedish Academy, Stockholm.

5. For the most distinguished advocate of peace measures. Efforts tending to diminish standing armies, to establish peace congresses, to promote arbitration, or to make treaties of peace are included. This prize is awarded by the Norwegian Storthing or popular legislative body.

No one is permitted to apply for a prize. The awards are honorary, made wholly on the recommendation of eminent scholars or learned societies. The income from the fund permits prizes of $50,000 each. The first was made in 1901. Among the prizes of that and succeeding years were awards to Konrad Rontgen of Munich for the discovery of Rontgen rays; Emil von Behring, for diphtheria serum; Sully-Prudhomme of Paris, author of Justice; Mommsen of Berlin, the historian and author of works on Latin inscriptions on tombs and monuments; Ronald Ross of Liverpool, for the discovery that malaria germs are implanted by mosquitoes; and to Frederick Maartens, for promoting the Hague Conference. The latter, it may be remembered, took a prominent part in drafting the treaty of 1905 between Japan and Russia. He preferred that the prize should run in the name of the Institute of International Law.

Among later awards are those to Dr. Finsen of Copenhagen for successful experiments in healing by means of electric light; to the Englishmen, Ramsay and Rayleigh, for the discovery of argon in the atmosphere; to M. and Mme. Curie and M. Becquerel of France, for the discovery of radium; and to Theodore Roosevelt (1906), for the promotion of peace among nations. In 1907 a prize was awarded to Professor Albert A. Michelson of the University of Chicago for discoveries in Physics. The prizes awarded since the foundation of the fund, including the awards of 1909, are given in the table below:

Physics.

CHEMISTRY.

MEDICINE.

LITERATURE.

PEACE.