In the Track of the Troops | Page 6

action--grave of countenance and of few words. He drew a flask from his pocket and emptied its contents, a large quantity of gunpowder, on the boulder. Asking us to stand a little back, he applied a slow match to the heap, and retired several paces.
In a few seconds the powder went off with a violent puff and a vast cloud of smoke. The result was a little shriek of alarm from my mother, and an exclamation from Bella.
"Not much effect from that, you see," said the manager, pointing to the blackened stone, yet it was a large quantity of powder, which, if fired in a cavity inside the stone, would have blown it to pieces. "Here, now, is a small quantity of dynamite." (He produced a cartridge about two inches in length, similar to that which I had shown to my mother at breakfast.) "Into this cartridge I shall insert a detonator cap, which is fastened to the end of a Pickford fuse--thus."
As he spoke, he inserted into the cartridge the end of the fuse, to which was attached a small cap filled with fulminate of mercury, and tied it tightly up. This done, he laid the cartridge on the top of the boulder, placed two or three similar cartridges beside it, and covered all with a small quantity of sand, leaving the other end of the fuse projecting.
"Why the sand?" asked Bella.
"Because a slight amount of confinement is advantageous," replied Mr Jones. "If I were to bore a short hole in the stone, and put the dynamite therein, the result would be still more effective; but the covering I have put on it will suffice, and will serve all the better to show the great difference between this explosive and gunpowder."
"But," said my mother, who had a tendency to become suddenly interested in things when she began to have a faint understanding of them; "but, Mr Jones, you did not give the powder fair play. If you had covered it with sand, would not its effect have been more powerful?"
"Not on the stone, madam; it would only have blown off its covering with violence, that would have been all. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will retire behind the shelter of that old beech-tree, I will light the fuse."
We did as we were desired. The manager lighted the fuse, and followed us. In a few moments there occurred an explosion so violent that the huge boulder was shattered into several pieces, which were quite small enough to be lifted and carted away.
"Most amazing!" exclaimed Bella, with enthusiasm.
It was quite obvious that she had no anticipation of such a thorough result. Nicholas, too, who I may mention had no natural turn of taste for such matters, was roused to a state of inquiry.
To a question put by him, Mr Jones explained that, taking its powers into consideration, dynamite was cheaper than gunpowder, and that it saved much labour, as it would have taken two men a considerable time to have bored an ordinary blasthole in the boulder he had just broken up.
I now led the way to another part of the ground on which grew a large beech-tree, whose giant roots took a firm grasp of the ground. It was a hundred years old at least; about twelve feet in circumference, and sixty feet high. One similar tree I had had cut down; but the labour had been very great, and the removal of the stump excessively troublesome as well as costly.
Mr Jones now went to work at the forest-giant. In the ground underneath the tree he ordered Lancey to make a hole with a crowbar. Into this he pressed some cartridges of dynamite with a wooden rammer. Then the cartridge, with the detonator inside of it; and the fuse, extending from its mouth, was placed in contact with the charge under the tree. The hole was next closed up with some earth, leaving about a foot of the fuse outside. The light was then applied, and we retired to a safe distance. In a few moments the charge exploded. The tree seemed to rise from its bed. All the earth under it was blown out, and the roots were torn up and broken, with the exception of four of the largest, which were fully ten inches in diameter. A small charge of dynamite inserted under each of these completed the work, and the old giant, slowly bowing forward, laid his venerable head upon the ground.
Another charge was next placed in the soil under some loose and decayed roots, which were easily broken to pieces, so as to permit of their removal. Thus, in a short time and at little cost, were trees and roots and boulders torn up and shattered.
"But is dynamite not very dangerous, Mr Jones?" asked my