Adventure Magazine Cover — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

662 of the Russians, but each time a few Japa- nese would scale the works, and go over them, only to be slain by the Russians inside. There was a lull for a short space, and the reporter thought, as doubtless did the Russians, that the Japanese had given up the task, when suddenly a troop of perhaps a hundred Japanese rushed forward, without arms, in a widely scattered line. Onward they flew toward the Russian camp, and, as they went up, there was a blaze of the Russian rifles, and half the Japanese column disappeared with a flash and a tremendous report. They had exploded! Each of them had been loaded with an infernal machine, hung across his breast and across his back upon his shoulders, so that, when struck by a bullet, he would explode and hurl death and destruction all around him. The Russians were so astounded, so par- alyzed by the spectacle and by the unex- pectedness of it that they ceased firing, while the remaining living bombs scaled the ram- parts and leaped in among their enemies, who instantly vacated the place, flying like rats from a sinking ship. DYNAMITE’S FREAK CONTRACTOR, who does business up in New York State, told me the following story: A carload of nitro-gelatin dynamite had been shipped to him, but was held up in a freight-house for a day or two before deliv- ery. One night there was an alarm of fire. Looking out, he was astounded to see that it was the freight-house burning. Knowing that his carload of dynamite would be sure to explode, he started to run to the scene in all haste, to warn the firemen and others to keep far away from the inevitable explo- sion, when suddenly there was a great burst of flame, which shot high into the sky and flared out bright and wild in all directions, sending up an enormous column of smoke. But this fierce combustion lasted only a few minutes and then subsided. He knew that his dynamite had burned up, and, curiously enough, without explod- ing. He met the fire-chief after the confla- eration and they spoke of the fire. The chief remarked that there must have been some very combustible freight on one of the cars Adventure burned. He said that, when the fire first started, the firemen played a full stream of water on this car, but it did not do any good. The car burned so fast and so fiercely that they had to rush away for their lives, or they would have been consumed by the intense heat, and he wondered what it could be that would burn so savagely. When told that it was a carload of dyna- mite he felt like a man who discovers the next day that he had walked along the edge of a high precipice at night. Although dynamite in such quantities as a carload would be almost certain to explode, sometimes even that quantity will take fire and burn up completely without exploding; while, at other times a single stick of dynamite when ignited will deto- nate. THE DOG THAT ATE DYNAMITE |e the early nineties I was experiment- ing with a new fulminate compound as a detonator for fuses in high-explosive projectiles. ‘The compound consisted of fulminate of mercury, gelatinated with guncotton. One of my workmen had a pup of a mis- cellaneous breed, which would eat anything under the sun that he could masticate. One day his master gave him about half a pound of this fulminate compound. Another of the workmen put some metallic sodium and dry fulminate into a gelatin capsule, stuck this into the end of a quintuple dyna- mite cap, wrapped the whole thing in a piece of meat, and, calling the dog out into the field, made him stand up and “speak”’ for it. Then he dropped it into the dog’s throat and it was swallowed at a gulp. The next instant, the latter workman’s own dog, which he prized very highly, came upon the scene and entered into a very brisk wrestling-bout with the dog that had been charged. Before he could call him away, there was a terrific explosion, and both dogs instantly vanished from this vale of tears. THE RACE WITH DEATH MONG the many dynamite-plants that hang upon the verdant hills of New Jersey, there is one which stands some- what apart from the railroad, and the dyna- mite has to be carted to the station over COnnicoookxs (C@ S|