Today We Celebrate

The inclusion of Edison and Tesla in the list of the 1915 recipients of Alfred B. Nobel prizes adds to the American interest in the fund bequeathed by the Swedish scientist who was the inventor of dynamite. The 1915 distribution of Nobel prizes will take place tomorrow, the 10th of December having been chosen for the annual ceremony because it commemorates the anniversary of the death of Nobel at San Remo, Italy, Dec. 10, 1896.

Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the founder of the fund for the bestowal of prizes upon men eminent in science, litera- ture and the advancement of peace, was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1833. He was 30 years old when, in 1863, he was granted a patent for the manufacture of an explosive composed of nitroglycerine and ordinary blasting powder. Nobel found a siliceous infusorial earth in Germany which was well suited to his purpose, since it absorbed three times its weight of nitroglycerine without becoming more than damp to the touch. To the mixture of earth and nitroglycerine was added a little alkaline material to neutralize any acid that might be set free by the nitroglycerine.

Perhaps the first example of the terrible uses to which dynamite could be put was afforded by the explosion on the North German Lloyd dock at Bremerhaven in 1875. A German named Thompson, Thomas or Thomassin, consigned a case of dynamite to Bremerhaven, to be shipped to America on the steamship Mosel. With it he sent a clockwork machine, set to explode the dynamite in eight days. The case was billed as containing valuable articles, and was heavily insured. For some reason the dynamite exploded while it was on the dock, where hundreds of passengers and their friends were gathered. More than 80 persons were killed and nearly 200 seriously injured.