THE MAKING AND HANDLING OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES.-LIFE AND MANNERS AGAINST these processes proceeding as rapidly as if it were ordinary olive-oil instead of the deadliest explosive known to man. HE great dynamite factory at Ardeer in Scotland, the largest of its kind, is one of the All around you are big cotton mills and most picturesque storehouses as full of fleecy, white cotton places in the world. as ordinary cotton mills and storehouses, Considering the unique but every pinch of the cotton, still white and dramatic condi- and fleecy, has been nitrated into guntions that prevail cotton, and would suffice, if exploded, to among its workers, the neglect of Ardeer cut you off in the beauty of your youth. hitherto by novelists and dramatists is sur- Death, instantaneous and pulverizing, enprising. This may be due, however, to the circles you, in fact, by the ton; but the fact that it is exceedingly difficult for a man and the thermometer surround you stranger to obtain access to the factory, also. The man's eyes never leave the inwhile, once inside, the surroundings are strument. Both are chosen for their perrather trying to sensitive nerves. For six fect reliability; and endless precautions, hours a day and two days in succession innumerable rules, and the strictest disciyour life depends, at every moment, upon pline maintain Ardeer in a state of busy a thermometer. and peaceful security, and prevent it from being scattered periodically over the calm blue sea that widens endlessly on one side, or the hungry brown acres of Scotland which stretch away to the horizon on the other. Great is the thermometer at Ardeer! Nitroglycerin, a teaspoonful of which would blow you to fragments, surrounds you in hundreds and thousands of gallons. It is making itself in huge tanks, gurgling merrily along open leaden gutters, falling ten feet in brown waterfalls, so to speak, into tanks of soda solution, and bubbling so furiously in other cylinders, through the in-rush of cold air from below, that it seems to be boiling. It is being drawn off from large porcelain taps like ale, poured into boxes, and rattled along tramways. In the form of dynamite, it is being rubbed with great force through brass sieves, jammed into cartridges, and flung into boxes; and in the form of blasting gelatin, it is being torn by metal rods, forced through sausage machines, and THE NITROGLYCERIN "HILLS." From the top of one of the nitroglycerin "hills" the factory looks like an enormous and eccentric landscape garden. In every direction rise green embankments, square, conical, or diamond-shaped, from fourteen to seventy feet in height, and covered with long rank grass. Many of them are faced with corrugated iron, and look like high fences. From the top of each mound peeps the red canvas roof of a white wooden house-a house within a hill wrapped, and tossed into hoppers-all which is from one to four stories in Copyright, 1897, by the S. S. McCLURE Co. All rights reserved. cut, height. Every explosive structure is surrounded by artificial banks, so that in the event of an accident all the others will be protected from concussion or flying fragments. There are three nitroglycerin "hills"; and on the one before you the nitrating-houses, two in number, in which. the nitroglycerin is made, stand out in clear relief at the top. They are frail wooden cabins, which were expected by Mr. Nobel when he built them to last six months, but which have not yet been blown to pieces after twenty-five years of constant use. Tunnels through the banks open everywhere. Tramways and lines of pipes on trestles cross each other diversely. This is the "Danger Area," the wide expanse in which the explosives are made and moved about. It is surrounded in an irregular semicircle by fourteen large groups of structures, from which rise fourteen high chimney-stacks. These include the nitric-acid works, acid recovery, ammonia-mill, potash-mill, "guhr "-mill, steam and power houses, box-factories, washing, carding, and bleaching departments for the cotton, pulping-mills, and other contributing industries, connected by steam railway tracks which join the Glasgow line. There are 450 separate structures, now occupying 400 acres out of the 600 owned by the company, which were, when the site was chosen by Mr. Nobel in 1871, a barren waste of sand dunes, stretching for a mile and threequarters along the sea. Into this kingdom of high explosives you enter by the courtesy of Mr. C. O. Lundholm, the works manager, under the guidance of the engineer of the works, Mr. E. W. Findlay. The strain upon your nerves begins mildly. Your hair is quite ready to rise, so ready that you can feel it awake and stretch itself at every spot of grease-which may be nitroglycerin-and every stray pinch of cotton-which may be gun-cotton. You now understand for the first time the psychological condition of a shying horse. You go along just as the horse does, with eyes strained at every small object and a lurking predisposition to bolt. The acid-works are soothing, however. They are quite safe. Nitroglycerin is made from glycerin, the sweetish adjunct of the dressing-table, and nitric acid. The glycerin is bought by hundreds of tons from various sources. In this big barn which you enter the nitric acid is manufactured. In two rows stand fifty-eight The nitroglycerin is made in the two houses at the top of the hill, and washed in those immediately beneath. The house in the center is a "drowning-tank," and that at the bottom of the hill is the "final" washing house. "Every explosive structure is surrounded by artifcial banks, so that in the event of an accident all the others will be protected from concussion or flying fragments." steel retorts about six feet in diameter and four feet deep, which are bricked up like ovens. Here sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol, from Glasgow is combined with nitrate of soda from Chili, and the nitric acid thus set free passes over in pipes to a high framework carrying numberless brown earthenware jars in which it condenses. As it passes over it gives off reddish fumes which are suffocating-a whiff of them gives you a fit of coughing, and a full breath of them would choke a locomotive. Mr. Findlay explains that the nitric acid thus made is mixed with a larger quantity of sulphuric acid, and moved in steel pony-cars to a station at the foot of each nitroglycerin "hill." Thence the acids are drawn up by cable or blown up through pipes to a tank at the top of the "hill" by compressed air. You mentally compare the advantages of being blown up with compressed air to being blown up by other means, and smoothing down your hair, enter the "Danger Area." THE DANGER AREA. To enter the "Danger Area" you must pass the searcher." He stands in front of his cabin, and you will find one of him always blocking the way at the four entrances to the explosive district. He is a tall, military-looking man in a blue uniform faced with red, and he takes from you all metallic objects-your watch, money, penknife, scarf-pin, match-case, matches, and keys. None of these are allowed to be where nitroglycerin is. He searches every man who enters, no matter how often the man may come and go. The girls, 200 of whom are employed, are not permitted to wear pins, hair-pins, shoebuttons, or metal pegs in their shoes, or carry knitting, crochet, or other needles. These regulations are the outgrowth of experience and the long-ago discovery in dynamite cartridges of buttons and other foreign substances calculated to make trouble at unexpected moments. girls are searched thrice a day by the three matrons who have them in charge. From the lack of hair-pins they wear their hair in braids, tied with ribbons, which gives them all an unduly youthful look. The searcher tells you that his chief trouble is with matches. Some of the lower-class male employees-there are 1,100 men in The |