Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1885 — The Hog Ate Dynamite. [ARTICLE]

The Hog Ate Dynamite.

A gentleman remarked: “Talk about dynamite: I can tell you a true story of what nitro-glycerine once did in our State. It was out near Prairie du Chein, where they were blasting a cut on the Prairie du Chein division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Road. The contractor had several kegs of the stuff in an underground place. One day a w orkman went to get some and left the place open; by and by some hogs came along, and one of them slipped into this place where the combustible itself was kept. The hog found a keg open, and as glycerine is tls sweet almost as honey the animal filled himself. He came out by and by and soon wandered into a stable near by belonging to the contractor. The hog got fooling around among tbe horses’ hind legs, when one of them drew off and gave Mr. Hog a good one. The concussion started the business, and not a vestige was ever discovered of the hog, or a single horse, or the stable. And where the stable once stood there was a hole in the earth fifty feet deep and not more than 200 feet in circumference.” There is a gentleman in this city knowing to these facts. — Madison (Wis.) Democrat. The camphor laurel, a native of China, and the tree from which most of the camphor of commerce is obtained, 3eems to have been successfully introduced into California, one tree in Sacramento having attained a height of thirty feet. The wood, every part of which smells strongly of camphor, is light aud durable, not Hable to injury from insects, and much favored by cab-inet-makers.