CLEARING LAND WITH DYNAMITE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1320, 17 March 1877, Page 18

CLEARING LAND WITH DYNAMITE.

Experience at clearing lands, both in removing stumps and large boulders, with dynamite, in Scotland has proved successful. The following account is given of a late trial in an Edinburgh paper : A spadeful of earth was moved from the side of a stump, and a hole driven into the stump with a crowbar. Into this hole a cartridge of dynamite was pressed by means of a wooden ramrod ; then a detonating percus3ion-cap, with a Blackford's fuse attached, was squeezed into a small cartridge or primer of dynamite, and inserted into the hole in the trunk, in contact with the charge. The hole was filled up -with, loose earth, about a footlength'of the fuse being left bare. A match was next applied to the fuse, and sufficient time was taken for the powder to reach, the percussion cap to allow the operatives to retire to <v safe distance. When the explosion occurred the trunk was literally blown out of the ground,

some of the fragments, weighing nearly twenty pounds, being thrown to a distance of over a hundred yards. The destruction of the stump was complete. In breaking up big boulder stones, the dynamite was simply placed on the top of the stone, covered with wet sand and fixed with the fuse in the ordinary way. The result was the reduction of the boulder to fragments the size of a walnut. It was effectually proved by the experiments that land can be speedily cleared of formidable obstructions to good cultivation by the use of dynamite, and the committe of the society who watched the operation expressed themselves as highly satisfied with the result.