It started by merely burning; but, as I have already said about dynamite, it is notional stuff. So, on this occasion, the guncotton took a notion to explode after it got fairly on fire, which did not take very long. The whole mass detonated with terrific violence, and, even before Sir Frederick had retreated as far as he expected to go, he was knocked senseless by the concussion, and nearly every shred of clothing was blown from his body.... Although considerably bruised and lacerated, he recovered after several months.
He had learned a useful lesson: that a small quantity of compressed dry guncotton can be very well depended upon to burn quietly away without detonating, but, when a large mass of it is ignited, the greater heat of combustion and the greater pressure generated in expelling the larger quantity of the products of combustion, is almost sure to produce detonation.
The fact that a small quantity of an explosive material will burn away quietly without exploding has often led persons to think that a large quantity would burn in the same manner.
At one time, the British Government had on hand at Woolwich Arsenal about a hundred tons of cordite that had begun to show signs of decomposition, and it was decided to burn it. The entire quantity was taken out into an open meadow, at what was supposed to be a very safe distance from the city limits. A train was laid to the pile and set on fire.
For the same reason that the five tons of Sir Frederick Abel's guncotton detonated, this huge heap of cordite also detonated. Almost instantly after it was ignited, it exploded with most awful violence, and with very disastrous results. A number of buildings in the near vicinity were leveled to the ground. A few persons were killed and many more injured.
After I had sold out my interests at Maxim, the place was taken over by a dynamite-manufacturing company. As there was left in one of the magazines a considerable quantity of dynamite when the property changed hands, the new concern, not choosing to sell it as their own manufacture, proceeded to utilize it as fertilizer upon a field of potatoes.
One of the natives, with his team and helper, was engaged to do this work. They had been instructed to use great care in opening the cases, but they still held their own opinions about the care necessary, which were based largely upon the contempt that is born of familiarity, and, having arrived upon the potato-patch with a good, big load of dynamite, they began to knock the cases open in any old way.