The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 26, 1900, Page 9

The streams of glycerin run thick and slow, but slow as they the temper- ature is rising. F rees at a time, it goes from sixty to nin That Is the danger point a better to ut off the glycerin, pe or entire~ ¥y, un The chemical though caustie, smooth, emoll of the glant. f the unexplosive, ric acid, and the Iycerin is the birth les it has its g and from the time the glycerin touches the acid it is a case of look out for trouble until the re- sulting treacherous fluld is finally incorp- orated with the varifous absorbent pulps its power and make it the powder” of commerce. 3 may burn it as a candle, ammer it on an anvil, or handle it as you please, with safety. Not so, though, with the fulminating caps which are used to explods the dyna~ mite; they are always sensitive and dan- gerous and nine-tenths of the accidents from blasting materfals are upon thelr copper heads. There are but three ingredients directly used in making nitro-glycerin, two of which, sulphuric and nitric acid, are high- ly caustic and corrosive; the third, gly- cerin, is the very same materfal that is used for softening the skin. About three tons of glycerin are used every day, and with it stx tons of nitria acid and twelve tons of sulphuric. The two aclds are not entirely consumed in the process, a part of the mixture being recovered from the waste and used over again. The glycerin is imported from Germany Seninued on Page Ten, are scattered w knows. w it's easy to w how. arged, mostly always per- s me THE POWDER wAS MIXED WRONG o bl too swd- ) BUT THE HOUSE WAS MIXED ALL RIGHT. t s think of every time on his way home e of prevention” staring at him. That is e “drowning tanks.” get too hot in the mix- he thermometer shows has been passed, a 4 and the entlre thousand gal- ays walting to ning tank is all that stands death, If he makes & like to be scared; to hear t midnight with the lights go and spend a n his clean, tidy, on the hill, they scare to keep them in ! day long brewing ding them down to the separating thing that he materials ve being all fluld, on the hill top bY water pumped from the bay. This is to lined iron churns in which the great perature rises steadily. 3 r. From there ygeep the mixture from heating. for in metamorphosis is made. great can of glycerin five feet high and y into smaller that is the source of all the danger in The engine which runs the beaters is twe feet across to be turned in, and all rm scales. Each the process. When Nils is ready to begin started and the cold water sent flowing of the different houses on the hill below: nd there are work, the three weighing tanks are each through the cooling coils. the separating house, the mixing house . tanks that stand filled with fifteen hundred pounds apiece The thermometers show a temperature and the packing house, are waiting for n them which are of mixed nitric and sulphuric acids in the Fahrenheit or thereabout. the run of fluid through the lead troughs v a steam engine. proportion of two parts of sulphuric to s of glycerin are then turned that will keep them busy for the day. p of these fron tanks one part of mitric, both as strong as they | oon as they strike the aeid With every one waiting on him the N. G. s d plje through which is ecan be made in commercial practice, THis brown fumes are given off and carried man may feel tempted to hurry, but he a 1nuous stream of cold salt mixture is then turned Into the lead- above the roof by waste pipes. The tem- must not. There is the/ ton