Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1918 — Tremendous Speed. [ARTICLE]

Tremendous Speed.

Fulminate of mercury, which is used as the original detonating charge in torpedoes, expands at a furious rate. A writer in the Rlustrated World makes a comparison between this rate of expansion and an express train traveling at the rate of 60 miles an hour. “Imagine,” he says, “24,000 feet a second—instead of the 89 feet a second made by a mile-a-mlnute train — and you will know why fulminate of mercury going off in your hand will carry a finger with it and yet not burn your coat” That is the ultimate til ■peed.