The above remarks are somewhat of a digression from the subject of this chapter, but, I think most of my readers will admit that they are by no means uncalled for. I have been told, and the newspapers teem with assertions, that these patented explosive compounds, with high sounding names, will bear “tamping” as hard as gunpowder, are safer, more powerful and cheaper than Nitro-Glycerin. We are a people, Barnum says, who like to be humbugged; I am afraid we are not the only people who like to be humbugged—it is a weakness of humanity—but this I do believe; the man who is addicted to humbug, had better give Nitro-Glycerin a wide berth, that is, if he hopes to end his days on a feather bed. Let us briefly examine these patents—the Lord deliver us from all such—for explosive mixtures, and see the amount of invention required. For a mixture of Nitro-Glycerin with rotten-stone, a patent was granted, and (the name being the only real invention) it was called “dynamite.”[9] Make a mixture of Nitro-Glycerin and sponge, and patent it, and forthwith “Porifera nitroleum” is presented to an admiring public.[10] Add plaster of Paris to Nitro-Glycerin, patent it, and you have in all its explosive power, “Selenitic Powder.”[11] Try red lead and Nitro-Glycerin together, and when patented, “Metalline Nitroleum” is the last new sensation to astonish the weak nerves of contractors.[12] [9] “Dynamite”—Patent No. 78,317, dated May 26, 1868, granted to Alfred Nobel, of Hamburg, Germany, assignor to Julius Bandmann, of San Francisco, California. The following is the substance of the claim: “My invention consists in combining with Nitro-Glycerin a substance which possesses a very great absorbent capacity, and which at the same time, is free from any quality which will decompose, destroy, or injure the Nitro-Glycerin, or its explosiveness. The substance which most fully meets the requirements above mentioned, so far as I know, is a certain kind of silicious earth, known under the various names of silicious marl, tripoli, rotten-stone, etc.” [10] “Porifera Nitroleum”—Patent No. 93,753, dated Aug. 17, 1869, granted to Taliaferro P. Shaffner, of Louisville, Kentucky. The claim is as follows: “I claim a compound composed of a mixture of Nitro-Glycerin with sponge or other vegetable fibre.” [11] “Selenitic Powder”—Patent No. 93,752, dated Aug. 17, 1869, granted to Taliaferro P. Shaffner, of Louisville, Kentucky. The claim is as follows: “I claim the combining of nitroleum or Nitro-Glycerin with plaster of Paris, or equivalent substances, in such manner as will make an explosive compound.” [12] “Metalline Nitroleum”—Patent No. 93,754, dated Aug. 17, 1869, granted to Taliaferro P. Shaffner, of Louisville, Kentucky. Claim as follows: “I claim a compound composed of a mixture of Nitro-Glycerin with metallic powder or atoms, however formed or produced.”