"All Amos Garwood put in the mortar after
we got there was some chlorate of potash. Then he put the pestle
in and began to grind."
"And then the explosion happened?" followed up Chief Coy.
"Chlorate of potash, eh?" broke in a local druggist, who had halted
and was listening. "Hm! If Garwood ground that stuff with a
pestle, then it doesn't much matter what else was in the mortar!"
"Is the chlorate explosive, sir?" questioned Dick.
"Is it?" mimicked the druggist. "When I first started in to learn
the drug business it was a favorite trick to give an apprentice
one or two small crystals of chlorate to grind in a mortar. After
a lot of accidents, and after a few drug clerks had been send
to jail for playing the trick it became played out in drug stores."
"But I've seen powdered chlorate of potash," interposed Tom Reade,
who was always in search of information.
"Yes," admitted the druggist. "I can show you, at my store, about
ten pounds of the powdered chlorate."
"Then how do they get it into a powder, sir?" pressed Tom. "Do
the manufacturers grind it between big millstones?"
"If any ever did," laughed the druggist, "they never remained
on earth long enough to tell about it. A few pounds of the chlorate,
crushed between millstones, would blow the roof off of the largest
mill you ever saw!"
"But what makes the stuff so explosive?" queried Prescott.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143