Adventure Magazine Cover — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

664 THE ONLY WAY i WAS once called in as an expert to visit a dynamite-plant where a new form of high explosive was being manufac- tured instead of the ordinary nitroglycerin dynamite. This consisted of a mixture of chlorate of potash, sulphur, charcoal and paraffin wax. The inventor of it had con- cocted the reassuring name, “XX Safety Dynamite.” Unfortunately this safety mixture went off unexpectedly, with no apparent cause, and drove a crowbar deftly through the head of one of the workmen. This un- scheduled performance awakened the ap- prehension of the president of the company, who was also the chief backer, and he grew suspicious as to the exact amount of safety in the mixture. On that account I was sum- moned, and the president himself accom- panied me to inspect the plant. When we were close to the factory, a sud- den explosion occurred which shook the earth for miles, and a tremendous pall of smoke instantly covered the sky. Going on, after a moment of stunned pause, we found that the site of the plant was now one vast crater, around which lay a litter of débris. A number of men had been in the factory at the time of the catastrophe. Now the sole survivor was walking busily about the crater, with a basket on his arm, picking up bits of something from the ground here and there. + As he observed us, he spoke casually: “T can’t find much of the boys. I guess you'll have to plow this ground, if you want to bury ’em!”’ THE BOMB AND THE TRAIN NE of the most anxious moments that I ever experienced was during some experiments in throwing aerial torpedoes from a four-inch cannon at Maxim. These torpedoes were about four feet in length, charged with a very powerful high explosive and armed with a detonating fuse. We had successfully fired several of them into a sand-butt, where they exploded with great violence. ‘There were six of them. Five had been fired, and the sixth was loaded into the gun ready to be dis- charged, when a passenger train hove in sight and was passing us about a thousand feet away when the gun was fired. Adventure We had no idea of there being any danger to the train, as its position was at right- angles to the line of fire and each of the pre- ceding projectiles had behaved so well. But this time the torpedo glanced from the sand-butt and went after that train. We stood paralyzed with dread as we saw it pass over the train, close to the roof of a car, and strike in the swamp just beyond it, perhaps a couple of hundred feet behind the track. An inverted cone of black earth shot up, followed by a dull sound. In imagination we had witnessed a fright- ful catastrophe, the wreck of a passenger train, with fearful loss of life, and all the horror of our own resultant predicament. Now that the danger was past, the even tenor of our way did take on a new relish. What objects we are, after all, of the mercy of chance! PATRIOTS SELF-DOOMED Pyle the Russo-Japanese war, more than one of the Czar’s warships disap- peared without leaving a trace. I received the following narrative somewhat indirect- ly, and for that reason I do not dare to vouch for its truth. Its origin, as I was given to understand, was a Japanese officer, who revealed the facts while in a mood more confidential than is customary among his kind. This officer held a command at the time on board a torpedo-boat. In the flotilla there was a _ torpedo-boat that carried neither guns or torpedoes. For that mat- ter, alr-compressors and every mechanical device not absolutely essential to the navi- gation of the craft had been removed to lighten it. It was then loaded with the most deadly explosives to the fullest capacity that it could carry at high speed. Next, a call was issued for volunteers to make up the small crew necessary for navigating the boat. The Japanese officer declared that ten times the number required offered them- selves, despite the fact that they were well aware that those who voyaged in this vessel went to certain death. The flotilla was steaming slowly along a short distance out at sea from Port Arthur, in the dead of night, when the huge gray bulk of a Russian warship loomed up in the dark, just in front. The ‘dynamite-laden torpedo-boat, which in itself constituted an enormous floating mine, made a dash, : COMmiCcLoookSs.EG©