detonation and the damsel
A chapter of this kind, bristling with frisky compounds, may well end with a
striking story, and this narrative is literally striking as well as-being true.
Once upon a time, now many years ago, a worthy Professor of Chemistry was
lecturing in an Australian university. His subject was mercury fulminate. It was a
very hot and humid day in November; his lecture theatre was filled to capacity
with a hundred and seventy frisky young Australians, and it had a galvanised
iron roof upon which the sun shone from a cloudless sky. Through the windows
came incespritly the vibratory shrilling of-the cicadas, or "bush canaries", mingled
with the odour of sunbeaten eucalyptus leaves.
Now in this audience the young ladies sat in the front seats, immediately facing
the lecture bench, and upon this torrid day of early summer one of them in
particular was feeling the heat and humidity. As the lecturer wended
remorselessly onwards, after the manner of professors immersed in their
subjects, the distressed damsel became increasingly aware of the
oppressiveness of her environment. At last the Professor warmed to his climax a
long-anticipated experiment on the detonation of mercury fulminate.
"You will observe on the anvil," came the familiar and, untiring voice, "a
specimen - a very small specimen-of this most powerful explosive, mercury
fulminate. I am now about to strike it with a hammer. I invite you all, ladies and
gentlemen, to pay attention to the result, and to recall in so doing what I have
told you about the activating effects of the detonation wave which I regret I
cannot demonstrate to you as well."
The hammer fell.
The Professor had been too modest in his closing words. The experiment
succeeded beyond his expectations. For when the hammer fell, the fulminate
detonated with a loud report, and simultaneously the aforesaid damsel, seated in
close proximity to the centre of disturbance, swooned away, after the manner of
agitated young ladies.
The Professor, jerked out of his wonted self-possession by this unwanted
response to the detonation wave, unwisely called for volunteers to carry the fair
victim of detonative aggression out of the crowded room.
The Australians are a gallant race. The response was all that could have been
expected, even in this Queen City of the South; for the eager class volunteered
en masse, headed by the brawny captain of the University Rugby Football XV,
the gigantic and lion-hearted Jumbo Woods. Having successfully removed the
fainting lady, the class "called it a day".
On the following morning the Professor met his class again. There was a full
attendance, including the heroine of the detonation wave. To the surprise of the
class, the anvil still reposed on the lecture bench, and the Professor opened his
lecture, by taking up the hammer.
"It occurs to me, ladies and gentlemen," he began, "that owing to an
unfortunate incident at the close of our last lecture you may not have grasped
the full significance of the detonation of mercury fulminate. I am therefore about
to repeat the experiment. But before I do so, I now afford anyone suffering from
weak nerves an opportunity of leaving the room."
The Professor paused, with the uplifted hammer in his hand, and gazed
pointedly at the innocent cause of yesterday's interrupted lecture. She, however,
was feeling quite at her ease: a "southerly buster" had come up the coast in the
afternoon, and the room was fresh and cool. So the damsel sat on demurely,
pencil poised above note-book, and did not budge.
But to his misfortune, the Professor's words, unlike his glance, were not
specific; and while he waited expectantly, with his eyes fixed upon the static
lassie, a dynamic figure arose in the back row, descended the sloping gangway
with thunderous tread, and stalked solemnly out through the open doorway in full
view of the spellbound Professor and his momentarily dumbfounded class. And,
lo, the departing figure was the figure of that mighty man of valour and hero of a
hundred stricken fields-the lion-hearted Jumbo Woods.
John Read
Explosives
Pelican Books London 1942
Chapter XI
Explosives That Excite Others [in part]
FOR THE FORCES
Leave this book at a Post Office when you
have read it, so that the men and women in the Services may enjoy it too.
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