One of the closest calls that I ever had in my life occurred in my laboratory at Maxim, New Jersey, in the early nineties.

Two of my assistants and myself were weighing out small batches of fulminate of mercury from a ten-pound jar. There were on the bench as many as half-a-dozen small squares of glass, each with its little pile of fulminate upon it. There was also a five-pound bottle of nitroglycerin standing on the bench. A little way removed, and under the bench, was a fifty-pound can of gelatin dynamite.

We were proceeding very cautiously, when all at once the scoop toppled, and an iron weight fell, striking within an eighth of an inch of one of the pieces of glass on which was fulminate of mercury. After a second of suspense, we stared at one another in amazement, wondering whether or not we were still in the land of the living.

An investigation into the cause of the accident revealed the fact that one of the young men employed in the laboratory had broken off an arm of the scales—one of the supports of the scoop—the day before, and, with criminal reticence, had made absolutely no mention of the fact to anyone. Had that weight fallen upon the fulminate, it must have dealt death to all of us.