of the glycerine, we can be morally sure that in the
bottom of this hold, each minute globule of it held firmly in a hard
matrix of sulphate or nitrate of calcium--which would be formed next
when the acids met the hydrates and carbonates of lime--is over one
hundred and thirty tons of nitro-glycerine, all the more explosive from
not being washed of free acids. Come up on deck. I'll show you
something else."
Limp and nerveless, Boston followed the doctor. This question was
beyond his seamanship.
The doctor brought the yellow substance--now well dried. "I found
plenty of this in the 'tween-deck," he said; "and I should judge they
used it to pack between the carboy boxes. It was once cotton-batting.
It is now, since I have washed it, a very good sample of gun-cotton.
Get me a hammer--crowbar--something hard."
Boston brought a marline-spike from the locker, and the doctor, tearing
off a small piece of the substance and placing it on the iron barrel of
a gipsy-winch, gave it a hard blow with the marline spike, which was
nearly torn from his hand by the explosion that followed.
"We have in the 'tween-deck," said the doctor, as he turned, "about
twice as many pounds of this stuff as they used to pack the carboys
with; and, like the nitro-glycerine, is the more easily exploded from
the impurities and free acids.
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