STARTLING DISCOVERY

Evening Star, Issue 22248, 28 January 1936, Page 8

STARTLING DISCOVERY

GELIGNITE BURIED UNDER FLOOR , POTENTIAL DANGER FOR TEN YEARS £Pbr Unhid Press Association.] INVERCARGILL, January 27. 1 A startling find was made during operations on the Tay street site on which for some years the jplacksmithls E remises of Messrs Kirkland and Head ave stood. Underneath the floor were discovered 109 plugs of gelignite two inches beneath the clay surface, which was stamped hard. Whoever was working the bellows must have stood right on top of the explosive, which was about three feet away from the anvil. It must have been there for at least 10 years, since the recent owners have no knowledge of it. Age makes no difference to the potency of gelignite, which, it is said, is as alive to-day as when it was first placed there. It is usually fired with fuse and cap, but may be set off by a direct blow, so that the work of excavation might have resulted in an accident had it not been done carefully. The gelignite has been handed over to the police. Fortunately the plugs were wrapped up in brown paper, and the man who made the discovery this morning came upon them without striking them with sufficient force to explode the gelignite.