Project Gutenberg #54475
Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century
Robert Routledge
1900Routledge's illustrated survey of nineteenth-century engineering and invention, prepared chapter by chapter from Project Gutenberg HTML.
Project Gutenberg #54475 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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the tramway, workmen advanced whose duty it was to wipe out the holes, 355charge them with powder, and fix the fuses ready for the explosion. When the slow-burning match was ignited, all retired behind strong wooden barricades, at a safe distance, until the explosion had taken place; and after the compressed air had been allowed to stream into the working, so as to clear away all the smoke and gas generated by the explosion, the workmen ran up on a special tramway the waggons which were to carry away all the detached stones; and when this had been done, the floor was levelled, the tramways were lengthened, and the frame bearing the drilling machines was brought up to begin a fresh series of operations, which were usually repeated about twice in the course of every twenty-four hours. A great part of the rock consists of very hard calcareous schist, interspersed with veins of quartz, one of the hardest of all rocks, which severely tries the temper of the steel tools, for a few blows on quartz will not unfrequently cause the point of a jumper to snap off.