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]>