Highly Explosive

“ I SHALL not appear at breakfast to-morrow morning, I shall be gone a-Maying,” announced Miselle, as she took her bedroom candlestick in hand. Caleb looked mildly up from the “ Bride of Lammermoor,” and the study of his illustrious prototype.

“Very well, my dear,” said he, “it is as harmless a vagary as could be expected. You will only spoil your clothes, and take cold in your head. Good night.”

hummed Miselle going up stairs, and Caleb once more raised his eyes to ejaculate : —

“ The wonderful power of alliteration properly applied ! Nothing but the three p’s in that last line could have prevailed upon so indolent a mortal as you, Miselle, to leave a comfortable bed and a good breakfast for the sake of draggling your skirts and — ” But the rest of the apostrophe was lost in the depths of “The Bride,” while Miselle, her candlestick, and her idea, pursued their upward journey.

The purple pansies proved few and far between, and their places were somewhat shabbily filled by houstonia, saxifrage, catkins, and twigs of aronia. To gather these Miselle travelled over miles of dewy upland and moist marsh, forded brooks, climbed fences, wet her feet, draggled her skirts, tore her dress, and finally, utterly bewildered and lost, emerged from the woods at the junction of two unknown roads, and there stood forlorn while the catbirds mockingly mewed in her face, and saucy robins dressed their plump red breasts with a maddening suggestion of a plentiful breakfast.

The light roll of wheels, the deliberate patter of four-miles-to-the-hour horse-shoes, and the gentle creaking of chaise-springs, heralded an arrival, and Miselle, disposing her draperies, her broken hat, and her purple pansies, as decently as possible, prepared herself to arrest the traveller whoever he might be, and demand of him, not his purse or his life, but, à la Sphinx, an answer to her questioning.

The nodding chaise-top rose above the alder-bushes, then came the rotund and contemplative horse, and finally appeared the sedate face of the Treasurer, who, at sight of the forlorn figure awaiting him, drew rein, gave salutation, and, in reply to the demand promptly fired at him, made reply.

“ The way home ? why, you are so far out of it, that it is hard giving any direction. You must have crossed right through the Walden woods, and the best thing you can do is to get into the chaise here, and I will take you back a little way and set you on the straight road. I ’d go all the way, but I have to be at the mills a little early this morning, because — ”

“ Thank you very much, and I accept with pleasure,” interposed Miselle, her impatient eyes fixed upon the deepcushioned seat beside the Treasurer, and a sense of unutterable weariness suddenly overpowering her.

“ Been out after flowers ? ” inquired her companion, in a tone of good-natured tolerance, as the chaise whirled upon its heel and began to jog steadily back in the direction whence it came.

“ Yes, but I did n’t find a great many, you see.”

“ Hardly enough to pay for the work, though I don’t know but that is the amusing part of the business ; I don’t get much time for going Maying myself, and when I do — ”

“ Good morning, Mr. Treasurer ; fine day for the season ; got your crops in yet ? ”

And the speaker, a sturdy, brown fellow', clothed upon with a farmer’s honest independence and blue frock, turned the cart in which he was carrying his plough afield a little to one side, and halted his Juno-eyed and sweet-breathed steers.

“ Well, no,” replied Mr. Treasurer, slowly ; “ we’ve had a good deal to do up at the mills.”

“ Got into trouble there the other day, did n’t you ? ” interposed Agricola, a little mysteriously.

“ Yes, had a mill go up and one hand blown,” replied the Treasurer, calmly. “ But that’s all put to rights now, and we ’re running full force — ”

At this instant a green and golden fly, lovely to behold, and spiteful and dangerous as some other lovely creations, settled upon Dobbin’s nose, and bit it so viciously and so deeply that he with an angry neigh tossed up his head, swished his tail, and set forth upon his journey again in an impulsive and unchastened manner very foreign to his usual habits. Order was however presently restored, and in its first moments Miselle resumed her rôle of Sphinx.

“ What was that you told the man about having a mill go up, and one of your hands blown off? ” inquired she, looking at the Treasurer’s two shapely and apparently comfortable upper extremities.

“ O, not one of my own hands,” replied he, smiling, “ But you know our powder-mills are just up here in Acton, and one of them exploded the other day, and the man who had it in charge was injured.”

“Dear me, and that’s the way you talk about it,” exclaimed Miselle, opening her eyes.

The Treasurer smiled again. “Why, yes, every business has its own phraseology, you know, and that’s the way powder-men talk. You never hear of explosions and casualties and fatal accidents among them.”

“ I suppose where there is a consciousness of so much danger, they like to disguise the mention of it as much as possible,” said Miselle, thoughtfully ; and then eagerly, “ But were you going to the powder-mills, just now, Mr. Treasurer?”

“ Yes. That’s the reason I did not offer to carry your home.”

“ O, I wish instead you would carry me there ! ”

“ What, to the powder-mills ? ”

“ Yes. I should of all things like to see a powder-mill! ”

“ Indeed ! I shall be very happy to take you there if you really wish to go, but — ” And the Treasurer looked dubiously at Miselle’s forlorn raiment. She blushed to the roots of her hair, fearing that she was not considered presentable, even to a powder-mill.

“ But I am afraid you will spoil your clothes. It is a very dirty place,” resumed the Treasurer, so evidently in good faith that Miselle laughed aloud.

“They cannot be more spoiled than they are,” said she. “ So if that’s all— ”

“ And you are not afraid ? ”

“ O no. My eyes are not as bright as the Countess of Salisbury’s, and on the ball-in-the-same-shot-hole principle the mills must be unusually safe just now.”

The Treasurer looked as if he did not quite follow this process of reasoning, but said something polite, and turned his horse in the direction of the mills. Presently appeared long rows of willows, lovely in the rosy flush of their spring raiment, and seeming the embodiment of pastoral peace and serenity. Mr. Treasurer waved his whip toward them.

“We cultivate these willows for charcoal,” said he. “ Every few years they are trimmed down, and the branches cut into suitable lengths, and peeled and distilled into charcoal.”

“ Distilled into charcoal ? ” repeated Miselle, curiously.

“ Yes,” replied the Treasurer ; “and I will show you what I mean, instead of saying it, for here we are.”

And the Treasurer, checking Dobbin at the entrance of a shed with a rack and manger at the farther end, while he took Miselle out of the chaise, drove in and made fast that amiable steed, and returning, led the way to a small building with a huge wood-house beyond it and a wood-pile nearly as large at the back.

“All that,” said the Treasurer, pointing to the formidable deposit, “ is destined to be burned into charcoal, and blazed away in gunpowder. It is partly willow and partly maple, a wood of which we use a good deal. It is all peeled or barked, cut into lengths as you see here in the pile, and then carried to the retorts in this building.”

And the Treasurer, closely followed by Miselle, led the way into a black and grimy building occupied at the one side by several bins filled with charcoal, and at the other by a large brick furnace, within which were enclosed four horizontal cylindrical cast-iron retorts, arranged precisely upon the plan of an old-fashioned brick oven, with a door at one end and a flue for the escape of steam and gases at the other. Into these cylinders the Wood is carefully packed, the larger pieces around the outside, while the smaller ones fill the interior, that all may receive an equal “bake.” The door is then closed, and the crevice about it “ luted” with clay, so as to render it air-tight. A fire is then made underneath, the flames extending quite around the retort and heating every part equally but not fiercely. This fire is kept up for twenty-four hours, when it is suffered to die down ; and the retorts stand unopened for twenty-four hours longer, when the charcoal is cooled and ready for use.

“ Here is a specimen,” said the Treasurer, taking up a stick from one of the bins and breaking it in two. The grain of the wood was perfect, the charring complete, and the color a glossy and velvety black, extremely beautiful in its way.

“Touch it; it will not soil your finger or your handkerchief,” said the Treasurer ; and Miselle, laying a finger upon the fractured end, found that it received no stain.

“ But what becomes of all the moisture of the wood, that would be smoke if the willow were burned in the open air ?” asked she, as her guide led the way toward the door.

“ Come round this way, and you shall see,” said he, smiling, and showed at the back of the building a row of four horizontal pipes all emitting steam, smoke, and a black liquid deposit which dripped into barrels set to receive it.

“ It is early in the day yet, but by night the air will be dense with this peculiar smoke which you may already both smell and see.”

“ It smells like an air-tight stove too closely shut up,” said Miselle, sniffing discontentedly.

“Yes. In an air-tight stove you convert wood into charcoal, tar, and pyroligneous acid, which latter products become gradually stored away in the funnel and chimney of your stove, and ultimately destroy them. We, on the other hand, only conserve the charcoal, and draw off the useless material in this fashion.”

“ Useless ? ”

“ Well, yes, to us, although very useful to those who wish for it. In England the tar, mixed with spirits of wine, makes a fine black lacquer, and the pyroligneous acid, chemicallytreated, becomes excellent wine vinegar.”

“ Is it possible ? ”

“ Quite. Let us be thankful that we live among apple-orchards, and that the product of these retorts is never used as food for man.”

Miselle was watching a man, black as the brother Grimms’ charcoal-burners, wheeling a large barrow of the charred willow branches out of the house and toward another building. “ What is he going to do with it ? ” asked she.

“ It is going to the pulverizing-house, where it makes its first step toward gunpowder. Shall we follow ? ” replied the Treasurer, good-naturedly. Miselle was already following, and presently stood in front of a series of long and somewhat slender barrels, revolving horizontally at a moderate speed, but with a deafening noise. Upon the floor lay a half-emptied bag of bright gold-colored sulphur, and beside it stood the barrow of charcoal.

“ These two ingredients,” shouted the Treasurer, pointing toward them, “carefully weighed in the proper proportions — ”

“What proportions?” shrieked Miselle.

“ Charcoal fifteen, sulphur ten, the remaining seventy-five saltpetre, with which we have not yet meddled,” replied the Treasurer. “ The sulphur and charcoal there are placed in these barrels in company with one hundred and fifty pounds of iron balls to each barrel, the barrels being fitted with interior ledges which aid the pulverizing process desired. The barrel is then set in motion as you see, and the motion continued from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, according to the quality of powder desired. It comes out in this form.” And the Treasurer lifted the cover from a wooden tub or firkin, half full of a grayish-black substance, as fine as the dust upon a sunny country road in August, and soft as down to the touch.

“There is no harm in it yet,” said the Treasurer, as Miselle gingerly touched the tip of her finger to the mass. “And now I will show you the saltpetre, which, after all, is the gunpowder, for the charcoal is only used to make it burn, and the sulphur to keep it in order and render it a little more reliable.”

The Treasurer opened the door of a building upon a side hill, and showed it filled with coarse brown sacks, conveying an indescribable suggestion of travel and the sea, so that Miselle’s first question was, “Where did they come from ? ”

“ Calcutta. Very little saltpetre is brought from anywhere else,” said the Treasurer, cutting open a bag and taking up a handful of the semi-transparent crystals. “And this is an unusually good article, as you may see for yourself, — very white, and very clean ; firstrate saltpetre, I call it.”

“ What is the price ? ” asked Miselle, looking respectfully at the saltpetre, and trying to remember how many miles it is from Calcutta to Boston by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.

“ Eleven cents, and the sulphur is worth four cents, and the coal from two to five, so you may estimate the price of a pound of gunpowder exclusive of labor, for these are all the ingredients. But now, come round here.” And at the side of the building, which was also the side of the hill, the Treasurer showed a wooden tramway with a hand-car which could be pushed under a trap in the floor of the storehouse, and thus easily loaded, without the exertion of raising the bags, which are immensely heavy in proportion to their bulk. From beneath the storehouse the tramway led to a door in the side of a building considerably lower down the hill, toward which the Treasurer now led the way.

Entering a large room filled with steam, men, pans, and piles, all more or less white and efflorescent, the first object prominently presenting itself was a huge boiler, almost resting upon the floor, and reaching so far toward the roof that, like the great Heidelberg Tun, it was approached by a flight of steps leading to a platform, which extended behind it as far as the door in the side of the building previously noticed. This door was now opened to admit a car of saltpetre, which was trundled directly to the edge of the vat. Miselle, courteously invited to mount the steps, was at the top presented to an intelligent-looking man, who with a long skimmer in his hand stood gravely watching the ebullition of a milky-looking mass which nearly filled the caldron, and seethed and bubbled in a desperate and somewhat startling manner.

“ Almost ready to draw off, is n’t it ?” asked the Treasurer, also regarding this singular-looking broth attentively.

“Yes, sir, pretty near,” replied the man, taking a small glass tube from a shelf above his head, and dropping it into the boiling mass, where it stood upright like a buoy.

“What is that?” asked Miselle, admiringly.

“ A spirit-glass,” said the Treasurer, taking it up and showing her the degrees marked upon it. “o you see represents the resistance of water to the air enclosed in this tube, and 45° the density of saltpetre in solution fit for our purpose. This solution is very nearly at that point, and in the moment we must wait before seeing it drawn off allow me to inquire whether you have ever dabbled in chemistry at all?”

“ Hardly; indeed, for all practical purposes, not at all,” replied Miselle, meekly, and the Treasurer proceeded.

“ Then perhaps you do not know that every salt crystallizes uniformly in its own peculiar shape, and under its own peculiar circumstances, so that in fact we do not purify or refine this nitre or saltpetre, for it is impossible that it should in a natural condition be other than simply itself, that is perfect; what we may do is to induce the conditions under which it becomes disentangled from other substances and is made available for manufacture. For instance, nitre is more soluble in water at the boiling-point than in cold water, but muriate of soda is not ; consequently when we draw off this nitre solution at a high temperature, the muriate of soda sinks to the bottom and is left behind in substance. On the other hand, nitrate of lime, muriate of lime, and some other salts are more soluble in cold water than in hot, consequently when the boiling liquor cools the nitre crystallizes, and the others are left dissolved in the mother-water of crystallization. And thus, as I say, Nature does tire work, and we are but her humble agents. One thing more, and then we shall see the drawing off. The boiling of this vat without a fire, — what do you make of it ? ”

“ Steam,” replied Miselle, in a “glittering generality.”

“ Yes,” replied the Treasurer. “A perforated steam-pipe is introduced into this kettle and coiled round its sides, and when the workman moves this brake and lets on the steam, it rises through the contents of the kettle to the surface and produces the ebullition which you perceive.”

“ And is that really boiling, and just as good as having a fire underneath in the old-fashioned way ? ”

“ Of course. You raise the solution to the boiling-point, and what difference does it make whether by fire or steam or dropping red-hot stones into it ? In old times, and not so very old either, we had a fire under each kettle in this refinery, but now our good servant steam does that and a great deal more for us with an infinite saving of time, labor, and consequently money.”

“ Well, he is a good servant, but not picturesque. How much does this great kettle hold ? ”

“ Six hundred gallons. There you see we have a smaller one, not in use just now.”

“ I see. And is there nothing in this but saltpetre and water ? ”

“ Only a little glue, which acts mechanically in consolidating the scum and making it easy to remove. You see that the solution is now perfectly clear, the spirit-glass stands at 45°, and our friend shuts off the steam and allows the liquid to become quiescent, that the insoluble salts may settle ; and in drawing off, he takes care not to disturb them.”

At this juncture the workman seized the open end of a pipe projecting a few inches above the liquid, and bent it backward to about the same distance below the surface. “ That is a jointed pipe,” explained the Treasurer. “ And by throwing it back in that way he opens it and allows his solution to run off, drawing always from the surface. Step down, if you please, and you will see.”

Miselle stepped down, and she saw that the other end of the pipe came through the side of the kettle near the bottom, and that it led into a wooden trough or gutter, which conducted the boiling liquid to the remotest of three large shallow wooden vats. Here stood a workman awaiting it with an implement like a very broad hoe in his hand ; and as soon as the solution covered the bottom of the vat, he began to stir it backward and forward with a deliberate motion, implying that he intended continuing the work for a long while.

“The trough is a cooler, and the instrument a cooling-iron,” explained the Treasurer. “And the purpose of the agitation is to prevent the nitre from crystallizing in large crystals, as it would if left to itself.”

“ What harm would that do ? ”

“ It would necessitate a crushing process before the nitre could be used in powder. By constant agitation it may be induced to crystallize in this manner.”

And the Treasurer led the way to a large box or trough elevated upon a frame, and heaped full of snow-white and sparkling crystals like coarse sand, or the grade of salt known in the shops as coarse-fine.

“This is the saltpetre as taken from the cooler,” said the Treasurer, “and it is placed in this trough to be rinsed. A quantity of pure cold water is poured over it and filters slowly through the mass to the bottom, where it escapes as you see.” And he pointed to a shallow trough below the rinsing-vat into which the liquid slowly dripped through holes around the base of the upper one. This lower trough was already nearly full of a yellowish liquid, and all around its sides the saltpetre had crystallized in beautiful clear spears like icicles, covered with a lovely little frost-work like bloom on a grape. The Treasurer took up one carefully and brushed away the rime.

“See,” said he, “how regular and beautiful is the shape of the crystal, and every one alike, and all so different from any other crystal. I wonder every lady does not study chemistry, it is such a beautiful science.”

“ I guess I 've got to disturb you a little with this hose,” said an apologetic voice; and between Miselle and the crystal appeared a hand holding the end of a black hose, which it deposited in the vat, whose contents immediately began to disappear. The Treasurer looked round.

“They are pumping off this vat,’ said he. “ The liquid residuum from every process in refining saltpetre is saved, and worked over and over until neither water nor nitre remains with the insoluble waste ; although, in fact, there is no waste at all, for the deposit remaining after all the nitre is extracted is one of the most valuable manures in existence, as you will confess when I show you our grass-land. Meantime, let us follow this hose, and see the next process.”

The hose being followed, led first to a steam-pump, and then to one of a series of large shallow pans, “jacketed,” as the Treasurer explained, with an exterior iron skin, between which and the interior one was left a space for the passage of steam, which, being presently applied, caused the contents of the pan to boil and bubble in a merry and highly evaporative style.

“ And so we keep on, you see,” said the Treasurer. “ Boiling down, evaporating, crystallizing, over and over, until every particle of saltpetre is extracted, cleansed, and thoroughly dried, which last process is effected by placing it in the jacketed pans, without any water, letting on the steam, and stirring the nitre gently until it is perfectly free from moisture. This is essential to accuracy in weighing. And now, I believe, we have seen everything here, and, having our three ingredients prepared, can go on to the combining them, thus entering upon the dangerous part of our journey. Do you feel inclined to stop here, and take the rest upon hearsay ? ”

“O no; I am not at all timid,” serenely replied Miselle; and with a little scream and a spasmodic contraction of the muscles, she nimbly jumped aside and ran back a little way, to escape a ferocious wasp who insisted upon flying into her eyes and mouth.

“ Here,” resumed the Treasurer, pausing at the door of a little building, “are the boilers which supply the refinery with steam, and serve several other purposes beside. Among the rest it is led into the wash-house, where the men, by turning a stop-cock, can force enough into a pail of water in one minute to make it too warm for use.”

“ I should think bathing would be rather a hopeless task for a powderman,” said Miselle, looking at a fine specimen of animated ebony with Caucasian features, who just then passed the boiler-house.

“ Not at all,” replied the Treasurer, a little indignantly. “There is not a cleaner set of artisans in the country than powder-makers ; for not only their comfort but their safety demands that every particle of powder should be removed, both from their persons and their clothes, before running the chances of ordinary life at home ; and every man among them takes a thorough bath, and changes every article of clothing, before leaving the mills at night. Their working-clothes never leave this place at all, and their home-clothes never come any farther than the wash-house.

“ And now we come to the mill, where for the first time we have our three ingredients combined in the shape of powder. Good morning, Malthouse ” ; and the Treasurer nodded good-humoredly to a grave and reserved workman who came forward to meet him.

“ Mr. Malthouse has charge of the mill we are about to inspect,” hastily explained the Treasurer. “ He is an Englishman, and an hereditary member of the powder-guild, for his grandfather died of old age in the business, and his father was killed by an explosion while at work ; but the son was not frightened out of the trade, you see. Where, in America, will you find three generations constant to one occupation ? ”

“ Either the grandfather or the grandson would have been a millionnaire with us,” suggested Miselle, smiling ; and Mr. Malthouse, unlocking the door of a small building, showed a number of tubs carefully covered, some containing pure white saltpetre in powder, and some the gray-black mixture of sulphur and charcoal she had seen in the pulverizing-house.

“ We put in two of each of these tubs for a charge,” said Malthouse, curtly. “ It is all weighed when it comes to me, and one hundred and fifty pounds is a charge. To that I put a gallon or so of water, and set the wheels going. It takes from two and a half to eight hours to finish a charge, according to the quality of the powder, and the weather.”

“ Why the weather ? ” interrupted Miselle.

“ In damp weather it takes longer to dry the powder than in hot, dry weather,” replied the man, briefly. “ And if it is left ten minutes or so longer than long enough, the mill goes up.”

“ Why ? ” again demanded Miselle.

“ Because the powder gets dry and light, and the rollers, instead of travelling over it as they should, push it along in front of them, and part of it rises in dust and flies over the edge of the bed, and at last the iron roller strikes the iron bed, and the next minute there’s a noise.

“ That was the way that man got killed last week,” said the Treasurer, softly. “He left the mill to go home to his dinner ; it Ought to have been stopped at 2.30 ; he got back at 2.50, looked in and saw a cloud of dust flying out of the bed, but all the same rushed in and had his hand on the wheel to stop the works, when the flash came. He staggered out of the ruins on his own feet, but it was the last turn they ever did for him. His head, face, feet, and legs were all scorched, but the worst of all was his clothes being filled with powder and igniting. They cut them off as fast as they could, but— ”

Miselle leaned against the side of the door, and Malthouse quietly said : “ It will be time to draw the charge in twenty minutes; you’d better take a look at it now, and leave before the dangerous time gets any nearer.”

“ You can just glance in, you know, and then I can tell you all about it as we go on, for this is really the only dangerous point in the whole process, — at least in our experience,” said the Treasurer, considerately.

“ I am not at all afraid,” replied Miselle, smiling with white lips. “ I was thinking of that poor man in his burning clothes ; but Mr. Malthouse does not permit such accidents.” With which piteous little sop to Fate and her present minister, she followed her two companions into the mill, and stood beside a great annular iron basin, about eighteen inches in depth, within whose circumference rolled with slow and ponderous motion two immense iron cylinders, strong, silent, and resistless as fate ; beneath them lay a bed of black powder about an inch in thickness ; and beside them, close to the inner and outer walls of the bed, travelled two wooden ploughshares, which continually threw this powder from the edges toward the middle, thus counteracting the tendency of the ponderous rollers to push it away from their track, and reach the iron bed whose contact meant death to any that stood near them at the moment. All powerful machinery induces a sentiment of awe in the mind of the beholder ; but Miselle, at least, never found any industrial device of man so awful to contemplate as these two immense cylinders travelling round and round their iron bed, and crushing beneath their tread that which might be the death of a thousand men. Fascinated beyond all terror, she stood watching them for many minutes, until she was aroused by seeing the workman plunge into the iron basin, apparently with the purpose of offering himself up a victim to this juggernaut whom he had served so long. But just as the great wheel grazed his head he drew it back, waited an instant, then dived again, and this time brought out with him a piece of black, moist paste, which he broke in his hand, critically examined, then showed to Miselle.

“ That we call mill-cake,” said he. “And when the charge is ready to draw, this will be all ground up into fine dust; that’s the time to stop the mill.”

“ How much longer has this charge to run?” asked the Treasurer, suddenly.

“ About ten minutes.”

“Just time for you to take a look at the water-wheel underneath and the foundations of the building,” said the Treasurer, turning to Miselle. “ They are hewn out of the solid rock ; and there are mighty few buildings in this Commonwealth that stand as firmly as this powder-mill.”

“ I thought all your buildings were very slight and cheap,” replied Miselle, following him out of the house and down a grassy slope at the side. The Treasurer looked disgusted.

“ So everybody thinks, who has not looked into the matter,” said he. “ But is it a reasonable theory ? Those two cylinders up there weigh seven tons apiece, and the bed in which they roll weighs five tons, and it is highly important to the proper operations of the mill that the whole should stand true and firm. Now can you support nineteen tons of metal in constant motion upon a card house ? ”

Miselle thought not; and the Treasurer continued: “No, the foundations and the framework of these buildings are as solid as stone and iron and wood can be put together, and about as expensive too. The covering in, the boarding, and the roof are slight, I grant you; just a shelter from the weather, in fact, and but little more, and in case of an explosion you see the benefit of this plan ; the side of the building blows off, or the roof blows up, and the damage is a matter of a few dollars and a few hours’ labor, for the whole force of the blast has spent itself in that direction, and the framework and the machinery are uninjured. The great loss in an explosion is not of property, but of time, you see.”

“ And of life,” suggested Miselle.

“Yes, but a man’s danger is in his own hands pretty much in this business. Care, common sense, and application diminish the risk to almost nothing.”

Just then Miselle reached the foot of the grassy slope, and looked beneath the mill into a lovely grotto full of green shimmering lights, and the plash of water, and the cool, moist air peculiar to such abodes. A plank, supported a few inches above the eddying pool, gave access to the place, and Miselle walked along it until she stood in the depth of the rock-chamber just above the two turbine water-wheels which had been stopped to admit her approach, and now at her request was set in motion. Standing there, with the gleaming, frolicsome water at her feet, the walls of dripping rock about her, and that awful possibility close overhead, Miselle spent a few memorable moments, then returned before she should be summoned, not that she was weary or terrified, but lest her lingering should appear a vaunt, and terrify the Treasurer with the belief that he had entertained one of the “strong-minded” unawares. His first remark confirmed her apprehension.

“You can say now that you have been where no woman ever was before, and where you would not find many women willing to go ; although for that matter, if the mill is to explode, it makes no difference where you may be, if it is within range of the explosion; and if it does not, why, you are as safe under it as inside of it. but the ten minutes are out; shall we go up and see the charge drawn ? ”

“ By all means.” And mounting the slope the Treasurer and his companion entered the mill again just as Malthouse, after a hasty glance into the bed where now the mill-cake was fast becoming mere dust and powder, went to a brake in one corner of the mill, turned it, and stopped the works. Next he wheeled a large, light barrow close to the bed, and with a wooden shovel lightly and rapidly transferred the charge from the one to the other, leaving only that small quantity which remained beneath the now motionless cylinders.

“ I suppose it would not do to start the wheels on for a few inches, so as to get out the rest of the powder,” suggested Miselle.

“ How far would they travel, Malthouse ? ” asked the Treasurer, with a smile.

“ Maybe one foot, but not two,” replied the man, without looking up.

“And then ? ” asked Miselle, for the sake of his answer.

“ We three would be out of this world anyway.”

“ After the new charge is in,” explained the Treasurer, “the clinkers, as we call them, are dug up by the operator by means of his wooden shovel, and either removed or ground right up with the rest. It does not answer to use anything but wood for that purpose, however.”

“ One feller got blowed knocking clinkers off with a copper hammer,” interposed Malthouse, rolling his barrow out of the mill and exchanging it with a comrade for an empty one, with which he went toward the little storehouse, and presently returned with a load of four tubs, two of saltpetre and two of mixed charcoal and sulphur, the whole weighing, as before stated, one hundred and fifty pounds. Setting down the barrow, he next brought a watering-pot and sprinkled the contents over the bed of the basin. Then with quick, lithe motions he emptied two of his tubs into one side of the basin, and the other two into the other side, distributed the contents with his shovel, then turned the brake and set the great cylinders in motion again.

“ He is in a hurry to get the works started before they cool off at all,” said the Treasurer. “ A certain degree of heat is essential to the working of the powder, and when, as sometimes happens, we let a mill stand still over night, it takes a good deal longer to perfect the next charge. Generally they run night and day, right along.”

“ But how about lights ? ” asked Miselle.

“ They are on the outside of the building and shine in. Then if the workman wants to judge of the condition of his charge he takes a piece of mill-cake close to the glass and examines it, and sometimes he saves a piece in the daytime that he knows to be right, and compares it by lamplight with his new work. Experience and necessity suggest a good many ways of getting over all such difficulties.”

“ How does the mill-cake look when it is ‘ right ’ ? ”

“It should be of exceedingly close texture, of a uniform dark-gray color, and free from glittering particles of sulphur or specks of any sort ; then there is a certain liveliness in the composition during its last stage, inducing it to attempt to escape like quicksilver from beneath the cylinders, which is very apparent to an experienced workman, and indicates the perfection and end of this process. But the time required to effect this end varies, as I before stated, with the various qualities of powder, and with the weather ; and the whole process is essentially varied in different localities. At Waltham Abbey in England, for instance, the charge is only forty-two pounds, and it is worked on an average for three hours under wheels of gray limestone six feet in diameter, and weighing about three tons each. The bed-stone is of the same kind, and the English writers upon this manufacture consider stone the best material, although gun-metal is used in the English mills at Madras, which, you know, is one of the great powder centres ; they complain that the metal beds lose their horizontal position, and that the cylinders become worn and unequal. But if I once go into the minutiae of English and Indian powder - making, we shall never get through our own ; and if you have interest enough in the subject to read half a dozen books, most of which I can lend you, you will get the whole much better than I can tell it to you.

“ The next point in our tour is the press-house, which the barrow of millcake we just saw wheeled away has already reached. Let us follow it.”

Passing another mill-house, where two more sets of cylinders were hard at work, the visitors came to a high and strongly built boarding, some twelve feet in height and twenty in length. A small doorway allowed passage to the raised plank walk connecting the different buildings, and showed a vista of trees, and grass, and running water, and a shadowy hillside flecked with sunshine, as full of sylvan loveliness and calm as though the little buildings dotted here and there were devoted to the manufactures of “ gospels of peace ” and universal brotherhood.

“ What a lovely spot! ” exclaimed Miselle, pausing in the doorway.

“Yes,” replied the Treasurer. “ It is pretty, although our establishment at Barre is much more so. Both of them are paradises for the squirrels, birds, etc., for of course no guns ever come within reach of them, and there are never many people about. As for the occasional explosions, they neither dread nor remember them, and they don’t mind the smell of gunpowder. Then there are plenty of trees and running water, as you see.”

“ Were the trees planted for ornament ? ” “ Well, not exactly. They are additional barricades between the buildings in case of an explosion, and prevent the fire communicating from one to another.”

“ Are these wooden barriers for the same purpose, then ? ”

“ Yes, they are called barricades, and the splinters and sparks flying from the exploding building are pretty certain to be caught either by these or the tree-tops, although with all the precautions possible the buildings will sometimes sympathize in some unaccountable manner. I have known seven to explode, one after another, with no visible communication.”

So chatting, the Treasurer and Miselle strolled along the plank walk, with the canal at one hand and the brook made by the waste water of the mill babbling and sparkling at the other, and the trees arching above their heads as if they grew only for their own beauty, and not to be torn and scorched with gunpowder, on to the next building in the series, called the press-house. Here stood the barrow of mill-cake just arrived, with a silent and gravelooking workman feeding it into a crushing-machine, to reduce it to a convenient shape and size for his purpose. This done, he proceeded to make it into sandwiches, thus : —

He takes a copper sheet about two feet square; a piece of canvas of the same size ; a quantity of powder about an inch in depth, shaped and measured by a wooden frame laid upon the canvas and lightly removed as soon as its use is fulfilled ; then another canvas, and another copper; and the whole process is repeated, until a pile of powder sandwiches at least three feet in height is produced, when the operator, finishing with a copper sheet, pushes the frame upon which this pile rests carefully along a pair of wooden ways until it stands directly beneath the screw of a powerful hydrostatic press, which is then set in motion, and so continues until the resistance of the mass beneath the screw exceeds the power brought to bear upon it, when the press becomes motionless ; in a few moments, however, the settling of the powder slightly relieves the pressure, when the power upon the water-wheel again becomes preponderant, and the screw makes another turn or two with a slow, grinding, painful sound, suggestive of racks and torture-chambers. This alternation of rest and motion continues for about half an hour, when, every particle of resistance having been crushed out of the unhappy powder, it is at last relieved by reversing the motion of the press, and sliding the frame back to its first position. The copper sheet is raised from the top, the canvas stripped away, and the first layer of powder taken out in a thin solid cake, technically known as press-cake.

“What is the use of the canvas?” asked Miselle, watching the silent operator stripping one “ cake” after another, and standing them upon their edges against the wall, where they resembled slabs of slate-stones ready for laying a garden walk.

The grave workman replied: “To keep the powder from sticking to the copper, and to make it easier to unpack.”

“ And what is the use of pressing it at all ?” continued Miselle.

The workman looked at the Treasurer, who took up the word: “The use is principally to preserve the powder from deterioration ; mill-cake powder, although considerably more powerful than pressed and glazed powder when first made, will, if exposed to the air, absorb moisture like a sponge, owing to hygrometric properties of the charcoal.

“ Unpressed powder is also of unequal force, some of it, as taken from the mill, being in hard slaty slabs, some in crumbling pieces, some in dust, and as each of these conditions implies a different period of ignition, you will see that a charge of this nature would be extremely unreliable, if not absolutely dangerous.”

“ Why should the mill-cake powder be more powerful when first made than the pressed powder ? ”

“ The power of gunpowder,” replied the Treasurer, taking out his memorandum-book and searching its pages,

“ depends upon the rapid evolution of certain elastic gases from it while in course of combustion, and the effort of these gases to escape from the gunchamber where they are confined is what carries the ball to its mark ; the more rapid the combustion the greater evolution of gas at a given instant; and mill-cake powder burns as much more rapidly than the pressed powder as shavings do than a block of oak-wood. Let me read you a few quotations to the point; here is one from Braddock’s ‘ Memoir on Gunpowder,’ one of our most reliable text-books : —

“ ' The operations of pressing and glazing interrupt the rapidity of combustion, and therefore, in all ordinary cases, they impair the propellant force of the powder. This deterioration of force has been estimated as high as one fifth to one fourth of the range ; i. e. if a given charge of mill-cake powder ranges 1,000 yards, the same charge of the same gunpowder pressed and glazed will range but 750 or 800 yards. But this refers to the powder only when newly made, for after twenty or thirty years the pressed powder would range farther than the unpressed.’

And this from an English Ordnance Report: —

‘“Mill-cake gunpowder cannot retain its strength, because the grains are too soft and porous, absorbing moisture like a sponge : mill-cake gunpowder made in the year 1789 ranged, in 1811, 3,628 yards. Gunpowder manufactured from hard-pressed cake has a firm, close grain, and consequently is not liable to attract moisture ; a charge of this powder, similar to that of the mill-cake powder, above quoted, ranged at the same time 4,193 yards, although it had been made five years longer.’

“ In brief: ‘ The operations of pressing and glazing preserve the powder; they make it competent to withstand the shaking and friction of carriage, and render it less liable to deteriorate if kept long in store, or if subjected to the influence of humid atmosphere.”

“ But,” continued the Treasurer, turning the leaves of the memorandumbook, “neither mill-cake nor press-cake would be in the least available for use, without the operation of graining, — or corning, as the English call it; that is, subdivision into small particles of uniform size. One more quotation to establish this point, and we will go on with our journey. This is from Braddock again : —

“ ' The following results occurred in a three-ounce French mortar éprouvette, shell 64 pounds, on firing the following charges:—

“ ‘ I ounce solid English press-cake in one piece. Shell not moved.

“ ' I ounce ditto, in one piece weighing of an ounce, and four small pieces. Shell just tilted out of the eprouvette.

“ ‘ I ounce ditto, in nine pieces weighing 12 1/2 drachms, the remainder in small pieces, grain, and dust. Shell thrown 3 1/2 yards.

“ ' I ounce ditto, in 57 pieces. Ranged 10 3/4 yards.

“ ‘ I ounce of English cannon-powder. Ranged 57 yards.

“ ‘ Therefore, by analogy, we may conclude that different degrees of granulation, or fineness of the grain, would cause press-cake gunpowder to range all the way from o to 57 yards.’

“ And now,” said the Treasurer, putting up the memorandum-book, “ we will go on to the graining-house, which you will find the noisiest and the dustiest place we have yet seen.’”

So on, over the shady plank walk, with the sunshine and the brook, and the birds and the summer air, all as lovely and as peaceful as ever, on to the graining-house, where the mill-cake, broken into pieces, is fed to a pair of toothed rollers, which craunch it into atoms, and deliver it to the buckets of an elevator like that used in a flour-mill or a bark-mill, which carries it down and up and on to a pair of smooth rollers held apart at any required distance by means of a set-screw, and varied according to the coarseness or fineness of the powder required. From between these rollers the powder falls upon a horizontal wire screen, to which a constant lateral motion is imparted, so that the finer particles are shaken through upon an apron, which carries them in one direction, while the coarser ones, remaining upon the screen, are ultimately thrown off and carried on to another pair of similar rollers.

The dust and noise of this building were, as the Treasurer had predicted, excessive, and Miselle, after as hasty an examination as her conscience would permit, was glad to emerge from the dense cloud of dust, most of which obligingly refused to leave her, and followed her quite to the next building, the glazing-house, where the powder, enclosed in long and narrow barrels, is subjected for several hours to a moderately swift rotary motion, resulting in a certain degree of polish, and the abrasion of the sharp corners and edges of the grains, thus fitting it for closer packing and more direct contact when fired.

“Next to the drying-house,” said the Treasurer, cheerfully, and led the way across a railless bridge, two planks wide, elevated some twenty feet above a rich meadow already kneedeep with waving grass.

“ It is the waste from the refinery that brings this meadow to what you see,” said the Treasurer, complacently; and Miselle, incautiously looking down, came perilously near to making a personal inspection of the meadow, — so near, indeed, that she was fain to pause and close her eyes.

She recovered breath in an upper chamber, its chief feature a long copper tube about a foot in diameter and some twelve feet in length. At one end of this tube was a hopper, into which an attendant poured a tub of powder, while at the other end a thin stream of powder issued forth and disappeared through the floor.

“This,” said the Treasurer, tapping the tube with his cane, “is a dryingcylinder. Inside this outer tube is a smaller inner one, and the space between is filled with steam ; the powder passes slowly through, carried forward by the revolution of the cylinder, and when it passes out is, as you may perceive, very warm and thoroughly dry.”

Miselle caught a little powder in her hand, and was satisfied of the truth of this statement.

“ Is it not dangerous to heat it so ? ” asked she.

“ No. You cannot explode gunpowder by application to a steam-heated surface,” said he; “or in any other manner, in fact, until you arrive at 6oo° Fahrenheit. Powder is not half as dangerous a substance, after all, as most people think. You may lay a handful upon the top of a stove, and your cook may prepare breakfast without even discovering it, unless she makes her stove red-hot. Under 600° you cannot explode it. Lieutenant Bishop, of the British army, in fact recommended to the military board at Madras that the temperature of drying gunpowder should be raised to 500° Fahrenheit, as at that point not only is the last particle of moisture driven off, but the saltpetre and sulphur are reduced to fusion, the grain becomes extremely indurated, and will not imbibe moisture even by exposure to a very humid atmosphere ; the lieutenant claims that, if well made in other respects, gunpowder thus dealt with arrives as near perfection as it can be brought; for the process improves its strength, and he says that it will keep for any number of years without caking or losing its energy in any manner. The process, however, has never been carried into practical operation, and, I must confess, has rather a fearful sound, and we do not propose immediately to adopt it in the American mills.

“ The next operation is to pour the warm and dry powder into this hopper, through which it falls upon a series of sieves below, ranging from a very coarse one down to one of silk boltingcloth, through which only the finest powder can pass. Upon the way it is exposed to the action of a fan, which reduces the temperature somewhat and drives away the dust. You will see the result of this sifting process down stairs.”

And following the Treasurer down stairs, Miselle saw an upright frame reaching from floor to ceiling, with a number of spouts issuing from its face, each lettered, “ F,” or “ FF,” or “FFF,” or “ FPG.”

From each of these spouts trickled a stream of gunpowder coarser or finer, each caught in a separate barrel, and ready now for packing and transportation. Collecting her flagging energies, Miselle followed her guide and a quantity of powder to the weighing-house, where she found a stock of pretty little white barrels, on brilliant brass scales, an intelligent-looking man, and a neat bench, above which hung the tallyboard, where he marked the result of each day’s labor. The little barrels contain twenty-five pounds each, and when filled and stopped have a label pasted upon the end, showing that they come from the mills of the American Company.

“ Would you like to look into the cooper’s shop ? ” asked the Treasurer.

“ By all means,” replied Miselle ; and they turned into a place redolent of chips and sawdust, and the freshness characteristic of a carpenter’s shop. Here were machines for sawing and grooving the staves, and others for fashioning the heads of the pretty powder-kegs, piles of supple hoop-strips, and two smiling young artisans, whose blithe and rosy faces presented a curious contrast to the powder-workers, who all seemed to wear the grave and stoical demeanor appropriate to men whose trade involves the possibility of a frightful death at any moment.

“ The kegs are varnished, if intended for the higher grades of powder, prepared with a water-proof composition inside, and sent to the packing-house,” explained the Treasurer. “ To-day we are running on blasting-powder, but we make all grades and varieties. The sporting - powder is generally packed in tin canisters, and then in boxes holding a dozen canisters.”

“ What is the difference between sporting-powder and blasting-powder, besides kegs and canisters ? ” asked Miselle, wearily.

“ The principal difference is, that blasting-powder contains a larger proportion of sulphur and charcoal to the nitre. Rapid and violent explosion is not so much desired in blasting as a combustion slow enough to allow the liberated gases time to rend the rock or the ore enclosing them to the greatest possible extent before they effect an escape. Another unimportant peculiarity is that blasting-powder is more highly glazed than finer powders, by the introduction of a little black-lead into the glazing-barrels. The miners fancy that it slips into the seams of the rock more easily for this extra polish, but it is all very much a matter of fashion and fancy. And now, I believe, you have seen all, unless you would like to take a look at the stables and powder-wagons.”

So Miselle looked into the great, clean, breezy stable, where seventeen horses champed their rich refinerywaste-fed hay, and admired the great powder-wagons, with their Bastile-like look of secrecy and hopeless imprisonment for whatever was once enclosed within their strong, high sides and jealously closed curtains. The romance of this last idea, however, received a shock from the Treasurer’s observation, that all this apparent strength was merely intended to defend the powder from the weather in its travels, and with no idea of restraining an explosion, — a misfortune never yet occurring to the wagons of the American Company, although the Treasurer instanced one which took place in the streets of Baltimore some years ago, with terrible results, when three wagons exploded one after the other, owing to the powder sifting out of the kegs and through the floor of one of the wagons to the pavement, where it ignited by the friction of the wheels. Now, however, as the Treasurer remarked, powderwagons are hung upon springs, and the risk of such an accident is virtually done away with.

But human physical endurance, even feminine, has its limits ; and Miselle had reached the end of hers, and was rejoiced to find that the next point the Treasurer contemplated making was the stall where Dobbin stood impatient to begin his homeward journey.

That evening, as Caleb took the “ Bride of Lammermoor ” from the table and settled himself in his reading-chair, a sudden association of ideas caused him to turn suddenly and inquire : “ O Miselle, did you go a-Maying this morning ? ”

“ Yes.”

“ And what did you bring home ? ”

“ Flowers of sulphur and the ‘ bloodred blossom of war.’ Tell me something of the history of gunpowder,” replied Miselle, from the depths of the sofa.

Caleb looked mildly surprised, but closed the “ Bride,” and passed a thoughtful hand down his face. Then replied: “Its history has been told a good many times, and the leading points, as I remember them, are these : In Halhed’s translation of the Gentoo laws (Indian, you know, my dear), supposed to have been compiled at the time of Moses, fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, we find : ‘ The magistrate shall not make war with any deceitful machine, or with poisoned weapons, or with cannon and guns, or any kind of fire-arms.’

“ Then we have Dutens, who, in his inquiry into the origin of discoveries attributed to moderns, demonstrates very plausibly that gunpowder was known at a much earlier age than is generally supposed. He thinks ‘that the attempts of Salmoneus, king of Elis, to imitate thunder and lightning, suggest to us that this prince used a composition of the nature of gunpowder ; and the writers of fable gave out that Jupiter, incensed at the audacity of Salmoneus, slew him with lightning as he was employing himself in launching his own thunder.’ Which certainly suggests that the unfortunate Salmoneus ended his life in a grand feu de joie of his own contrivance.

“Don Cassius, a native of Bithynia, who lived about A. D. 230, reports of Caligula, that ‘ this emperor had machines which emitted thunder and lightning, and at the same time projected stones ’; and Joannes Antiochenus corroborates him.

“ Appollonius Thyanœus, a philosopher, who about the year 200, or a little later, made extended travels in the East, records that ‘when the Indians of towns are attacked by their enemies, they do not rush into battle, but put them to flight by thunder and lightning.’ On the same authority, ‘ Hercules and Bacchus, attempting to assail the Indians in a fort where they were intrenched, were so roughly received by reiterated strokes of thunder and lightning launched upon them from on high by the besieged, that they were obliged to retire.’ In 1218 we have mention of gunpowder by Friar Roger Bacon, who says : ‘ From saltpetre and other ingredients we are able to make a fire that shall burn at what distance we please.’ The other ingredients appear to have been studiously concealed at first under a transposition of the letters, thus : Lura mope can ubrie stood for carbonum pulveri. But the friar told his secret, and the ingredients appeared in subsequent works under their true names.

“ ‘ Some authors consider that Bartholobus Schwartz discovered gunpowder in the year 1320, and that it was used by the Venetians during a war with the Genoese in the year 1380.’

“ ‘ A sort of universal belief has given to China or India the credit of being the birthplace of gunpowder; and as saltpetre, its chief ingredient, is largely found in Bengal and in the northwest of India, and probably on many of the vast plains eastward in the direction of China, this assertion seems highly probable. At the same time, until the passage round the Cape of Good Hope was discovered, gunpowder must have been an extremely expensive article of European warfare. A camel could hardly carry sufficient saltpetre for three hundred pounds of gunpowder.’

“ Scattered all through the histories of ancient Indian warfare we may find allusions to artillery, siege-guns, handgrenades, rockets, and various other fire - arms arguing the use of gunpowder ; and it is probable that first a knowledge of the use, and then a knowledge of the art, drifted slowly westward and northward long before either crossed the seas Europeward. ‘ In this mode may be accounted for the first appearance of gunpowder among the Turks, Venetians, and Moors, while their enemies, the Austrians, Genoese, and Spaniards, were taken unawares by its destructive effect.’

“‘The manufacture of gunpowder commenced in England in the reign of Edward III. (1345), but was not thoroughly established until the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the improved art was brought from Flanders by the Evelyns.’ George Evelyn, grandfather of the celebrated Sir John, had powdermills at Long Dulton, near Kingston in Surrey, and at Leigh Place, near Godstone in the same county, and although we hear of mills in Elizabeth’s time at Faversham in Kent, those of the Evleyns seem to have been the first of any importance in the British kingdom.

“ The manufacture of gunpowder in the United States is nearly as old as the Constitution, and perhaps had something to do with establishing it as well as maintaining it. Like many other arts, however, it is chiefly confined to the Northern and Middle States ; and of the score of mills within the United States, eight of them are in Massachusetts.”

“ Caleb, stop ! ” commanded Miselle, indignantly, “ and tell me what book you have been ' cramming ’ from to this horrible extent.”

Caleb laughed, and took up the “Bride.” “ I was reading Colonel Anderson’s ‘Sketch of the Mode of Manufacturing Gunpowder in Bengal,’the other day,” said he, “and got most of the history out of that. Then I have looked into some other books a little ; and the Treasurer dropped into my office this afternoon, and we had a little chat.”

“ I knew ‘ that somebody towld ye,’ ” remarked Miselle; and burrowing into the sofa-cushions, took refuge from a cruel world in the land of dreams.

Jane G. Austin.