Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/345

ATIiANTia GIANT POWDEB CO. V. DITTMAE POWDKB OOw 337 �that Dittmar made, and finally Dittmar refrained altogether from speaking to him on the subjeet. It thus became ueces- sary for Dittmar to employ chiefly the time of Nobel's absence from Krummel to make those experimenta, and, when Nobel was there, Dittmar experimented when net under Nobel's serutiny. �Towards the end of October, 1866, Dittmar made public tests of his mixtures of nitro-glycerine with infusorial earth, as an absorbent, before government officers, at the factory at Krummel, in the presence of Nobel, Winckler and Bandmann, which tests proved eminently successful, The ingredients of Buch compounds were at that time known to Nobel, inas- mueh as Dittmar had revealed to him what they were. No- bel, after the successful issue of such tests, and while Ditt- mar was further experimenting with infusorial earth in com- bination with nitro-glycerine, mised some of the infusorial earth that had been tried and prepared by Dittmar, with nitro-glycerine, in a glass jar. The only original experiment ever made there by Nobel was that of painting sheets of com- mon paper with liquid nitro-glycerine, and then roUing them up in the form of a cartridge. Dittmar says : "I continued my experimenta, covering almost every known absorbent substance, both explosive and inexplosive, both combustible and incombustible, with the view of discovering that sub- stance which, either naturally or under chemical treatment, would, without decomposition, absorb the largest quantity of nitro-glycerine without detracting from the explosive force thereof, and either assist or enhanee the force of explosion, while at the same time rendering the compound a safe and efficient powder, until the fall of 1867, when I left the employ- ment of Nobel & Go. From November, 1866, until I left their employment as aforesaid, I made large quantities of the compound, consisting of nitro-glycerine and infusorial earth, in the proportion of about 70 per cent, of nitro-glycerine to about 30 per cent, of infusorial earth, and these were sold during said period in open market. In the spring of 1867 Nobel stated to me that be was going to take a pleasure trip �y.l,no.5— 22 ��� �