I was once called as an expert to visit a dynamite plant where a new kind of high explosive was being manufactured instead of the ordinary nitroglycerin dynamite. It consisted of a mixture of chlorate of potash, sulphur, charcoal and paraffin wax. Its inventor had given it the reassuring name of Double X Safety Dynamite.

A quarry-man in a nearby town had, with his safety-ignoring habitude, attempted to load a hole with the stuff, using a crowbar as a rammer, with the result that he set off the charge, and the crowbar went through his head.

This unscheduled eventuation aroused the apprehension of the president of the company, who was also its backer. He began to grow suspicious about the safety of the material. Being so much interested, he went with me on my visit of inspection.

We left the train at a siding about a mile from the works, and had just started in their direction when there came a sudden boom and roar, and the earth shook. Over the powder works there rose a huge column of black smoke, flaring wide into the sky.

We found a great crater where the mixing house had stood. Three men were working in the building when the explosion occurred. A fortunate survivor who had left the place a moment before to go for a bucket of drinking water, was walking about the crater, apparently searching for something among the scattered remnants. As we approached him, he sadly said:

“I can’t find much of the boys. I guess you’ll have to plow the ground if you want to bury them.”