“We were employed during the month of September, 1868, at the West Shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel, at the time when Colonel Shaffner, the complainant, was making experiments with Nitro-Glycerin in the said tunnel, and assisted him by drilling holes in the rock to receive the cartridges containing Nitro-Glycerin, and tamping said holes. After the explosion of the said Nitro-Glycerin, we witnessed its effects on the miners. These effects were usually to produce a dryness about the throat, and feeling of thirst, which led the miners to take a drink of water; immediately thereafter the miners would vomit, and such vomiting would be followed by severe headache, rendering it necessary for the miner so affected to be removed to the air, and out of the tunnel, and the effects of such headache would last for from twelve to eighteen hours; in fact, the vapors caused by the Nitro-Glycerin exploded by said Shaffner were of such a noxious character as to disable the miners generally from continuing their work. “During the past three years we have often examined the Nitro-Glycerin manufactured by G. M. Mowbray, and been regularly employed as foremen of the miners who drilled the holes for receiving the cartridges of Nitro-Glycerin exploded by said Mowbray and by his assistants, and we declare that Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin differs greatly in appearance from that used by said Shaffner; that Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin is colorless almost as water, whereas Shaffner’s was orange-colored; that the explosive effects of said Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin were much greater, so far as we could observe, and that particularly we have noticed the miners do not suffer from any noxious vapors after the firing of blasts of said Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin, and that during the three years the Nitro-Glycerin made by Mowbray has been used in said Tunnel, there has not been a single case where a miner has been compelled to leave his work by reason of the gases given off by the explosion of Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin. And we consider that the Nitro-Glycerin made by said Mowbray, and used in the Tunnel; very much safer to handle, and does not give off noxious gases as compared with the Nitro-Glycerin made by the United States Blasting Oil Company of New York, and used by said Shaffner in the Hoosac Tunnel. And we verily believe that if said Nitro-Glycerin were attempted to be used in the Tunnel, now that so general a use is made of Nitro-Glycerin, it would compel the miners to leave their work and seriously retard the progress of the work by reason thereof, for those who could endure it for a time would have to carry out those who are unable to move after inhaling the gases of the Shaffner Nitro-Glycerin, and thus lose time which would otherwise be employed in doing work. “We consider it utterly useless to confine the Nitro-Glycerin when fired by Mowbray’s system.” PHILIP MACKEY, Feb. 16, 1870. TIMOTHY LYNCH.