Sorry for coming in late, but I’ve been away from my office for a
fortnight, and could read emails but not reply to the list. I think
the answer to Roger’s question about well-sinkers succumbing to
dynamite fumes is not so much about what they could smell, but what
they COULDN”T smell.
Well-sinkers using dynamite as early as 1880-1884 must have been very
new to it, and would have been accustomed to using blasting powder
(black powder) for most of their careers. The aftermaths of the
explosions of the two blasting agents were very different. A black
powder explosion creates an opaque dirty-white cloud of smoke, soot,
powdered rock and water vapour, with a lot of sulphur dioxide
present. (Nineteenth century battles on land or sea were mostly
fought by men with soot-blackened faces in clouds of blinding smoke,
amid the noxious stink of burnt sulphur.) No well-sinker would
descend into a well full of that. I presume well-sinkers customarily
laid a black powder charge just before knocking off for the day, and
came back next morning to muck out the rubble. The explosion
products of blasting powder looked, smelled and tasted toxic, and any
sensible person would avoid them.
However, from the 1870s on, the new generation of Alfred Nobel’s
explosive agents: Dynamite, Gelignite, Monobel etc, were marketed
with a number of advantages including being “smokeless”. That meant,
as Rick Stewart described, once the rock dust settled, the explosion
products were a wispy brown smoke, and it would be tempting for a
labourer on piece-work to descend into the well and go back to work a
few minutes later. But dynamite’s explosion products include carbon
monoxide (toxic), carbon dioxide (suffocating) and nitrogen dioxide
(toxic). Carbon monoxide and dioxide are both transparent and
undetectable by human smell or taste, and insidious in their effects;
the victim simply experiences lethargy and sleepiness. Nitrogen
dioxide probably forms most of the brown fumes, and is acrid in smell
and taste, but relatively benign compared to sulphur dioxide.
Crucially for well-sinkers, both carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide
are heavier than air, and would sit in the bottom of an unventilated
well for days. Carbon monoxide is about the same density as air, so
it too would disperse only slowly. The deeper the well, the slower
the dispersal. Unless there was some vigorous mechanical method of
ventilating the well, a well-sinker going back to work too soon after
a dynamite explosion would start to feel strangely sleepy after a
while. If he recognised the symptoms, he would yell for help or
climb the ladder very quickly. If not, he would probably just sit
down to have a little sleep, forever. I would guess the victims
Roger has recorded were mostly new to dynamite, and working alone in
deep wells. There was a similar rash of fatalities in the early
twentieth century when internal combustion engines came into use for
pumping small mines. Many were placed with their exhausts too close
to the shaft, and miners underground died in an invisible pool of
carbon dioxide and monoxide .
Peter Bell
On 03/05/2009, at 7:24 PM, Rick Stewart, Morwellham Quay Mine Manager
wrote:
> Nitro glycerine based explosives certainly have an almondy/
> marizpany smell
> before detonation.
>
> The post explosion nasties would include nitrous fumes which appear
> as a
> brownish wispy smoke and are fairly obvious. I suspect that the
> real killer
> is not the dynamite fumes but carbon monoxide which is a by product of
> explosive use and is often referred to as after damp. Also present
> may be
> increased levels of carbon dioxide, known as black damp or choke damp,
> which, whilst not poisonous in itself, is harmful in that it replaces
> oxygen and, therefore, has a suffocating effect. Both carbon
> monoxide and
> carbon dioxide are odourless and colourless.
>
> Rick Stewart
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Roger Baden Bradford" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 11:14 PM
> Subject: Dynamite Fumes
>
>
> Fellow Listers
> I wonder if some one can tell me what the fumes of dynamite smell
> like!!!!
> I should explain that in my researching I have come across a number of
> wellsinker's death's from suffocation, due to dynamite fumes, in
> wells in
> the period 1880-1884.
> I have recorded dynamite exploding from a distance, but on
> examining the
> site minuets later can not recollect any particular odour!! {in a
> quarry}.
> My interest is WHY if the smell is strong, would the wellsinker
> return too
> soon after the charge went off!!!!!!!
> I have faint memories that Dynamite Sticks had the faint odour of
> Marzipan!!!!!
> Can anyone please advise me re' the above.
> Take Care.
> Roger B Bradford of South Australia
>
>
_________________
Dr Peter Bell
Historical Research Pty Ltd
PO Box 574, Goodwood SA 5034
Phone (08) 8373 1900
Mobile 0407 793 652
email <[log in to unmask]>
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