“I am engaged in the business of manufacturing electric fuses and introducing explosive compounds to contractors, miners and torpedo men. I have carefully examined the patents in question re-issued to Tal. P. Shaffner, and, I find, by the modes therein described, it is impossible to fire with certainty, and simultaneously, more than two mines charged with Nitro-Glycerin by any of the methods described in said four re-issued patents; and to effect any explosion of Nitro-Glycerin by any of the methods therein described, and materials delivered to the public by the assignees of the inventor Nobel, it is absolutely essential that the Nitro-Glycerin should be confined as described in the re-issues in question. I have also carefully examined the patent issued to George M. Mowbray, dated July 27th, 1869, and find that the process therein described of exploding Nitro-Glycerin, does away with the necessity for confining Nitro-Glycerin in order to explode it. I endorse previous evidence from my own experience in regard to exploding Nitro-Glycerin when unconfined under Mowbray’s system. I have also manufactured and delivered upward of twenty thousand fuses to the contractors of the Hoosac Tunnel, capable of exploding Nitro-Glycerin when unconfined, at said Hoosac Tunnel. I have been present when the modes described in the re-issues of the Nobel patent have been carefully practised, and entirely failed to fire Nitro-Glycerin, and in one instance immediately after the failure of the Nobel system, I inserted a fuse of the exact description, and with the electric appliances as described in Geo. M. Mowbray’s patent, No. 93,113, dated July 27th, 1869, and the result was a successful explosion. The modes described in the Nobel re-issues, Nos. 3,377, 3,378, 3,379 and 3,380, have been abandoned by all parties with whom I am acquainted, who have important works to carry through, requiring Nitro-Glycerin to be exploded, and particularly by the said Tal. P. Shaffner himself, as I have manufactured, sold and delivered to said Shaffner and others, the apparatus and the exploding electrical fuses for firing Nitro-Glycerin made by said Shaffner, and Nitro-Glycerin made by the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Company, which said fuses or electrical exploders, involve a principle of firing Nitro-Glycerin of great practical importance and very recent development, viz., the principle of concussion, so as to effect the explosion of the entire mass of Nitro-Glycerin instantaneously, without requiring the explosion to be transmitted from particle to particle, in this respect differing very materially from the methods described in the Nobel re-issues above referred to, which require, first, confinement, and then heat and pressure, to be developed in the presence of the Nitro-Glycerin.” February 24, 1870. H. JULIUS SMITH. Evidence of James H. King.