CHAPTER VII.
Nitro-Glycerin Patents and Litigation.
It is seldom that any valuable invention has been brought into public use without costly litigation being entailed on the inventor; and especially is this the case in chemical discoveries, either by pretenders who would interfere with the inventor who has turned his discovery to practical account, on the plea of having previously conceived the same idea, or by unscrupulous individuals who would appropriate to their own use, without payment, the fruits of the labors of other men’s brains; hence the writer did not altogether escape, as will be seen by the following remarks on the subject.
Miners ascending Central Shaft.
Miners ascending Central Shaft.
I will commence by stating briefly that a patent was granted and four re-issues of the same made to Alfred Nobel and his assignees, for the use of Nitro-Glycerin for blasting purposes, when “confined,“ and for a process of manufacturing the same, by running the glycerin and mixed acids together rapidly, in suitable proportions, into a tank of water. Now, it has never been denied that Sobrero was the discoverer of Nitro-Glycerin, and that it was competent for any one to manufacture that article. The only point, therefore, on which a patent could be obtained was for some improved method of making it. Accordingly, in the course of experiments, I discovered that by passing a current of cold, compressed air through the mixing glycerin and acids, a very valuable improvement was effected, economizing time and material, and rendering the process of manufacturing safer; and for this I obtained a patent on April 7, 1868.
That my readers may see how far I was correct in my estimate of the patentable value of my invention, I give below the opinion of eminent counsel:
New York, July 10, 1869.Geo. M. Mowbray, Esq.:Dear Sir:—Pursuant to your request, I have examined your Letters Patent of the United States for inventions in the manufacture of Nitro-Glycerin, dated the 7th April, 1868. I recollect of aiding you in preparing the application for that patent, and of examining it immediately after it was issued. I believed then that that patent was good and valid, and nothing since has occurred that has changed my opinion or shaken my confidence concerning its validity.I have recently examined copies of the five re-issued patents to assignees of Alfred Nobel, and I find nothing in them, or any of them, which impairs the validity of your patent.I further say, that it is my opinion, and clearly so, that the manufacture and sale of Nitro-Glycerin made according to the process described in your patent, does not infringe upon any of the five re-issued patents granted to the assignees of Nobel; and that so far as any of those re-issued patents are concerned, or anything else that I know of, you have a clear right to manufacture and sell Nitro-Glycerin according to your patent.Very respectfully,Geo. Gifford, Counsellor at Law.
New York, July 10, 1869.
Geo. M. Mowbray, Esq.:
Dear Sir:—Pursuant to your request, I have examined your Letters Patent of the United States for inventions in the manufacture of Nitro-Glycerin, dated the 7th April, 1868. I recollect of aiding you in preparing the application for that patent, and of examining it immediately after it was issued. I believed then that that patent was good and valid, and nothing since has occurred that has changed my opinion or shaken my confidence concerning its validity.
I have recently examined copies of the five re-issued patents to assignees of Alfred Nobel, and I find nothing in them, or any of them, which impairs the validity of your patent.
I further say, that it is my opinion, and clearly so, that the manufacture and sale of Nitro-Glycerin made according to the process described in your patent, does not infringe upon any of the five re-issued patents granted to the assignees of Nobel; and that so far as any of those re-issued patents are concerned, or anything else that I know of, you have a clear right to manufacture and sell Nitro-Glycerin according to your patent.
Very respectfully,
Geo. Gifford, Counsellor at Law.
This discovery was not allowed to pass unchallenged, for Mr. Tal. P. Shaffner, having learnt that I had obtained a patent, came forward with a claim that he had conceived the idea (!) in 1865; and in January, 1869, nearly a year after the application for the patent which was granted to me, he applied for a patent for the same thing. This brought our respective rights before the Patent Office in a matter of interference. However, the following remarks by Mr. John W. Thacher, Examiner of Interferences, in giving his decision on the case, will show pretty clearly to whom the right to a patent justly belongs. He says:
“The principle is well established that he who first reduces an invention to practical form is entitled to a patent therefor. Applying this test in this case, the right to a patent seems to rest entirely in Mowbray, and the invention is accordingly awarded to the patentee.”
And again Mr. Samuel S. Fisher, the Commissioner of Patents, in giving his decision, remarks:
“The story of Shaffner is not that of a man who had invented anything. He had a theory, talked about it, doubted its value; did not experiment to satisfy himself; until Mowbray was manufacturing on a large scale; and evidently did not intend to apply for a patent at all. I can find none of the ear-marks of a perfected invention, carried beyond the region of experiment; still less of any trace of diligence. Priority is awarded to Mowbray.”
As previously noted, the Nobel patent with its re-issues, in four divisions, and twenty-four columns of specifications, containing eight claims drawn up expressly to intercept infringers, specifically, emphatically, and unmistakably insisted:
1st. That Nobel discovered it was necessary to confine Nitro-Glycerin in order to explode it, and that it was practically impossible to explode it unconfined.
2d. That heat and pressure were the agents necessary for a successful explosion of Nitro-Glycerin.
The writer, however, discovered that the heat, pressure and confinement, claimed by the Nobel patent and re-issues, were unnecessary, by charging an open glass tube with Nitro-Glycerin,the glass tube being immersed in water, and the Nitro-Glycerin exploded by the concussion of a cap containing fulminate of mercury, and so succeeded in extricating himself from the domain of the Nobel patents and their particular claims.
But he could not extricate himself from litigation; the insolvent assignee, the United States Blasting Oil Company, clearly perceiving that the monopoly, as they had termed it, was gone, now resorted to the “pis aller” of litigation, misrepresentation, and threatening every one who used Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin, with the trouble of making affidavits, engaging counsel, and collecting evidence, a by no means to be despised aggressive warfare to contractors, who need all their time, all their capital, and all their ingenuity, to carry out their contracts to a profitable result. Guaranteeing the payment of enforced damages, I met this flank movement by engaging the best counsel, and resolutely set about terminating the pretensions of these patents.
A Suit in Equity was commenced in the Circuit Court of the United States, Western District of Pennsylvania, during the May Term, 1870, by the
United States Blasting Oil Company of New York, by its President, Tal. P. Shaffner,
vs.
Geo. M. Mowbray, J. H. King, Chas. Lobb, W. L. Holbrook, James Dickey and A. D. Hatfield.
As the sworn affidavits in the above case, now pending, are of great importance in substantiating, both practically and legally, the claims urged in previous observations, on behalf of the “Mowbray system” of manufacturing and using Nitro-Glycerin, I give below the substance of the testimony.
Evidence of George F. Barker, Professor of Physiological Chemistry and Toxicology in the Medical Department of Yale College.
“I have carefully examined the several re-issued patents, Nos. 3,377, 3,378, 3,379, 3,380, 3,381 and 3,382, the four former being divisions A, B, C and D, of the re-issued patent, granted upon the surrender ofthe original patent No. 50,617, dated October 24th, 1865, and the two latter divisions 1 and 2 of the original patent, also granted to the assignees of Alfred Nobel, on surrender of the original patent No. 57,175, dated August 14th, 1866, granted to said Alfred Nobel. I would further state that in the specifications of the before-mentioned re-issues it is asserted that Sobrero discovered that Glycerin was capable of giving, when, mixed with sulphuric and nitric acids, a substance analogous to gun cotton, which is true; and that the specifications of the said patents further state that “Sobrero abandoned further research with the declared opinion that its combustion or explosion could not be managed”; which statement, having read all which Sobrero is believed to have published upon the subject, viz.: his papers published in the Comptes Rendus de L’Academie des Sciences, Volume XXIV., page 247, printed in Paris A. D. 1847, and in the Repertoire de Chimie Applique, Volume II., page 400, printed in Paris in 1860, I have entirely failed to find recorded by him as his opinion.”
J. E. de Vrij also, in a communication to the British Association, which was read in July, 1851, and is published in the report of the association for the year 1851, page 52 (Notices and Abstracts), states in regard to Nitro-Glycerin, that it “explodes at a moderate heat, as was shown by experiment, detonating when the drops of Nitro-Glycerin on paper were struck a smart blow with a hammer.”
The before-mentioned re-issued patents further assert that “in order to explode the whole, or even a large proportion of the mass of Nitro-Glycerin, it is necessary to subject it to confinement or restraint”; which assertion is untrue, for Nitro-Glycerin, when freely exposed to the air in an open vessel or plate, may be and is capable of being readily exploded, without confinement, restraint, or pressure, as I have proved by experiment made at North Adams, on the 17th day of May, 1870, in exploding upon two occasions a quantity of Nitro-Glycerin in an open saucer with great violence, on which occasion the Nitro-Glycerin was exploded by simple concussion in open vessels, the fulminate cap used as the exploder being suspended above the surface of the Nitro-Glycerin in the saucer, and distant nearly two inches from it; so that the application of heat and pressure, or of either of these agencies, is unnecessary.
The said re-issued patents further assert, that “the degree of confinement must be sufficient to allow a pressure upon the Nitro-Glycerin to an extent that 360°F will be realized, so that decomposition will take place before the liquid can escape the force or heat of the evolved gases of a percussion cap, etc.”; whereas I found on the above occasion that when water was interposed between the Nitro-Glycerin and the percussion cap, so that no measurable increase of temperature (much less 360°F) could possibly occur in the former, the Nitro-Glycerin could be exploded.
In the first experiment three tubes, closed at bottom and containing half an ounce of Nitro-Glycerin each, were placed in water in a tumbler, being supported an inch from the bottom. Into the water in the tumblers, and outside of the tubes, distant from them nearly an inch, the fulminate cap was put. This was then fired, and caused the explosion of the Nitro-Glycerin through the intervening water. In the second experiment, using a tub of water in which eleven tubes containing Nitro-Glycerin were placed, the explosion of six fulminate caps failed to fire the Nitro-Glycerin, the distance from the tubes at which they were placed, nearly or quite ten inches, being too great. In the third experiment five such tubes of Nitro-Glycerin were suspended in a tub of water distant four or five inches from each other; the fulminate cap being inserted in the middle tube. On firing this cap the Nitro-Glycerin in all the tubes was exploded, as judged from the violent effects produced.
The said re-issued patents further assert that “Gun-cotton will explode in proportion to the degree of confinement, igniting at 266°F.” The celebrated chemist of the English War Department, F. A. Abel, who has made the most extended researches upon gun cotton on record, asserts in his paper published in the Philosophical transactions for 1869 (an abstract of which appears in the Journal of the Chemical Society of London for 1869, Volume XXIII., page 11,) “that rows of detached masses of gun cotton, placed on the ground, and extended 4 or 5 feet, have been exploded with most destructive results by firing a small detonating tube in contact with the piece of compressed gun cotton which formed one extremity of the row or train, the explosion of the entire quantity being apparently instantaneous and equally violent throughout.” And further that these and similar experiments “appear toindicate decisively that such explosion is not a result of the heat developed by the explosion of the detonating materials.”
I have witnessed the manufacture of Nitro-Glycerin as practised by the defendant Mowbray, at his works situated near the West Shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel, in Massachusetts, and after a full examination of the mode said to have been the invention of Alfred Nobel, and described in the before-mentioned re-issued patents, find that the process actually in daily use, at said Mowbray’s works, is that described in said Mowbray’s patent No. 76,499, dated April 7th, 1868, which process is substantially different from that described in the complainant’s re-issues hereinbefore set forth. According to said re-issues, Nobel’s process consists in running two separate streams, the one of Glycerin, the other of mixed nitric and sulphuric acids simultaneously into a conical vessel which is perforated at the lower portion thereof, through which perforations the mixture of acids and Glycerin passes into a vessel placed beneath, containing water. In the Mowbray process, a single fine stream of Glycerin is allowed to run into a previously cooled mixture of sulphuric and nitric acids, through and into which cooled mixture of acids is continuously forced, while the Glycerin is entering, a current of atmospheric air, previously artificially dried, compressed and cooled. The action of this current of air is an essentially important and useful one, both upon the process itself and upon the resulting product. First, as to mechanical effects: it thoroughly incorporates the ingredients; it removes in part the nitrous fumes which would otherwise be retained by and contaminate the product, and it cools the mixture by absorbing the heat produced by the chemical reaction of the ingredients. Second, as to the chemical effects: by the action of the oxygen which this air contains it oxidizes the nitrous acid, which may be present in the acids or may be produced in the reaction, to nitric acid, and thus economizes the materials, increases the quantity of the product, and produces a chemically pure article, as is shown by the fact that the Nitro-Glycerin thus produced is perfectly colorless, congeals uniformly at the same degree of temperature and produces, when exploded, no offensive vapors deleterious to the health of the miners using it. Moreover, as, in my opinion, these nitrous fumes tend to induce decomposition in the Nitro-Glycerin and thus torender it unstable, dangerous, and liable to spontaneous explosion, as is demonstrated to be the case in the analogous substance gun cotton, the introduction, in the method of Mowbray, of cold, dry, compressed air into the mixture, in order to get rid of these nitrous fumes, must be regarded as a substantially new invention.
In my opinion, the character of the Nitro-Glycerin is determined by the strength of the acids used in its preparation; the stronger the acids, the purer the product and the more efficient. I verily believe this: first, because it is true of the precisely analogous compound gun cotton, which is prepared in the same way; Hadow having proved, as stated in his paper published in the Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society of London in 1854, Volume VII., page 201, that at least three products are obtained by acting upon cotton by a mixture of sulphuric and nitric acids, the most explosive being always produced by the strongest acids; and 2nd, because of similar differences observed in Nitro-Glycerin made by different experimenters, and believed by them to be due to like differences in composition; Railton obtained by analysis, as stated in his paper in the Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society of London for 1854, Volume VII., page 222, the composition now universally adopted as that of Tri-Nitro-Glycerin. De Vrij believes the product he obtained, Journal de Pharmacie, series III., Volume XXVIII., page 38, 1855, to be Tri-Nitro-Glycerin, and Liecke in Dingler’s Polytechnisches Journal, Volume CLXXIX., page 157, 1866, gives methods by which Mono-Nitro-Glycerin, Di-Nitro-Glycerin and Tri-Nitro-Glycerin may be produced, the essential difference in these methods being only the strength of the acids employed. Gladstone’s Report of the British Association for 1856, page 52 (Notices and Abstracts), has shown that different samples of Nitro-Glycerin differed in properties according to the amount of water contained in the Glycerin; this water, by diluting the acids, making them weaker. Moreover the physiological properties of Nitro-Glycerin have been found by different experiments to differ widely. Sobrero, its discoverer, says a very small quantity taken upon the tongue produces a severe headache for several hours, whence he concludes that it is poisonous. De Vrij in 1851, says that it is not poisonous, and in 1855 that it produces headache, though ten drops caused no symptoms of poisoning in a rabbit. Dr. Herring, in 1849, reported in the American Journal ofScience and Arts, series II., Volume VIII., page 257, observed the violent headache produced by 1/250 of a grain of Nitro-Glycerin or Glonoin, as he proposed to call it, and killed a cat with three drops. Field, in 1858, Pharmaceutical Journal, Volume XVII., page 544, confirmed these results; but Harley and Fuller, reported in the same place, were unable to obtain them by using other specimens of Nitro-Glycerin, though they largely increased the dose. Field consequently says, place given, page 627, “I am daily more convinced of two important facts connected with it, viz.: the great variation in the strength of different specimens, and the very marked difference in the susceptibility to its influence.” In further support of the opinion that several allied but distinct Nitro-Glycerins have been made, the wide difference in density and in congealing point may also be mentioned.
In my opinion the best effect cannot be obtained with commercial acids, owing to their insufficient strength. I have witnessed at the defendant Mowbray’s works, at the West shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel, the preparation of the acids used for making the Nitro-Glycerin, commercial acids being found deficient in strength, and in my opinion it is to the use of these stronger acids, combined with the method described in defendant’s patent, as above mentioned, that the stability, efficiency, and, above all, the freedom from noxious gases and vapors of the products of combustion of defendant’s Nitro-Glycerin is due, when contrasted with that made by complainant, which I have been informed and verily believe is made with acids of commercial strength, and produces, when exploded in a mine, gases and vapors highly deleterious to health.
I have further examined the patent No. 93,113, dated July 27th, 1869, granted to Mowbray, for exploding Nitro-Glycerin, and have experimented with the same, the explosions hereinbefore enumerated having been effected by the method therein described. And this deponent finds that by said Mowbray’s process of exploding Nitro-Glycerin, as claimed in his patent, confinement, restraint, or pressure is wholly unnecessary.
In my opinion the same is true in exploding Nitro-Glycerin on a large scale, as I have been informed, and verily believe that upwards of one thousand explosions of Nitro-Glycerin are made weekly in the Hoosac Tunnel by the mode so described in said patent.
I believe, moreover, that the method claimed by Mowbray, in said patent, differs materially from any of the various modes of exploding Nitro-Glycerin described in the before-mentioned re-issues granted to the assignees of A. Nobel, since these various methods specifically require the Nitro-Glycerin to be under confinement, or subjected to heat or pressure when confined, in order to explode it; while Mowbray claims exposing the Nitro-Glycerin to the concussion, agitation, or percussion of a heavy charge, not less than ten or twelve grains of pure fulminate of mercury, which fulminate is fired by passing the electric spark through a priming composition.”
George F. Barker.
June 8, 1870.
Evidence of S. W. Johnson,Professor of Analytical and Agricultural Chemistry in Yale College.“I have read the foregoing affidavit of Professor Geo. F. Barker; I witnessed the experiments therein described, and concur in the statement contained in said affidavit.”Samuel W. Johnson.June 8, 1870.
Evidence of S. W. Johnson,Professor of Analytical and Agricultural Chemistry in Yale College.
“I have read the foregoing affidavit of Professor Geo. F. Barker; I witnessed the experiments therein described, and concur in the statement contained in said affidavit.”
Samuel W. Johnson.
June 8, 1870.
Evidence of George M. Mowbray,Operative Chemist.
“About October, 1867, I concluded an agreement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to erect Nitro-Glycerin works near the West Shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel; these erected, I commenced manufacturing Nitro-Glycerin about the 26th day of December, 1867, and with but few intermissions have continued to manufacture it for blasting purposes for the tunnel work ever since. About June 13, 1868, I had a long interview with Mr. Taliaferro P. Shaffner, the complainant in this suit, when the said Shaffner proposed to me a consolidation of interests, and told me, if I would influence J. H. King and Henry Hinckley to advance the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars, that Robert Rennie of the Lodi Chemical Works, of Lodi, New Jersey, would credit him with acids to manufacture Nitro-Glycerin, to the amount of eighty-five thousand dollars, and he would then purchase land about twenty miles up the Hudson river, and manufacture Nitro-Glycerin. The proposal I forwarded to J. H. King and Henry Hinckley, who deemed the same too chimerical to enter upon, more especially since said Shaffner informed me that one-fifth of theconsolidated association would have to be paid to one Frederick Smith, one-fifth to said Robert Rennie, and one-fifth to said Shaffner, on behalf of said U. S. Blasting Oil Company’s engagements, said Company being deeply indebted to the Lodi Chemical Works, according to the assertion of Joseph Butterworth, the superintendent at Lodi. Mr. Shaffner further informed me that the United States Blasting Oil Company had transferred and assigned all the patent rights conferred by the Nobel patents to him, and he intended to obtain a re-issue of the said patents, and with the individual patents obtained by him, and the patent that had been granted to me in April, 1868, a Company could be formed that would control the supply of Nitro-Glycerin throughout the United States. I soon after consulted with J. H. King and Henry Hinckley, both capitalists, with means, as to the proposals of Tal. P. Shaffner, and the conclusion that we arrived at, was, that, as all the cash capital, and the only practicable method of manufacturing a safe, stable and pure Nitro-Glycerin, was already secured by patent to me, to place seventy-five thousand dollars at the disposal of the parties named by Mr. Shaffner would not be a sensible or prudent course, in view of the condition to which the management of the said Shaffner had reduced the United States Blasting Oil Company’s affairs financially, and the failure to supply the demand for Nitro-Glycerin, although the United States Blasting Oil Company had no competitor in New York; so I informed said Shaffner that said Hinckley and King would not advance the money, to wit: seventy-five thousand dollars, under such arrangements, and the proposition fell through. And I would further state, that at each of the various interviews—one of them prolonged for four hours without interruption—the said Tal. P. Shaffner fully admitted to me that any one could or might make Nitro-Glycerin, either by the method described by Sobrero, the inventor, in 1846, or by my patent, granted in 1868, April 7th, without in any way infringing on the patents issued to A. Nobel, and assigned to said Shaffner, as President of the United States Blasting Oil Company. And further, on the 8th December, 1869, I was at Oil City, at the request of the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Works, and assisted in the explosion of one blast in three drill holes of Nitro-Glycerin, using a frictional electric machine, insulated wires, the priming fuse and fulminating charge, asdescribed in Letters Patent, granted to me, July 27th, 1869, and being No. 93,113, and entitled “An Improved Method of Exploding Nitro-Glycerin.” I am well informed of the four re-issued patents, Nos. 3,377, 3,378, 3,379 and 3,380, and the methods therein described differ very materially from the method that was practised on the 8th December, 1869, at the Oil City Tunnel, by me, and particularly in this very material respect; whereas, by the method practised at the Tunnel, an operator can blast simultaneously at will one hundred drill holes; by the methods described in the re-issues above mentioned, it is absolutely impossible to explode two drill holes simultaneously. And this difference between the simultaneous blasting of a number of holes and firing the same number of holes one after the other has been found in actual results to effect an economy of thirty per cent. in the cost of blasting out rock in the Hoosac Tunnel. In a book (Exhibit B), entitled “Liebig and Kopp’s annual report of Chemistry for 1847 and 1848”, pages 376 and 377, volume 2, published in London in 1850, there is a notice of the comparative power of nitro-cotton and gunpowder, and reference is there made to the nitro-compounds, made from dextrin, glycerin and sugar, as being “similarly explosive preparations,” to gun-cotton and nitro-mannite, which latter is described as a cheap substitute for fulminating mercury in the manufacture of percussion caps, and certain comparative experiments with the former (gun-cotton), as to the relative value of the same, compared with gunpowder, are mentioned as having been made by the celebrated powder manufacturers, “Messrs. Hall & Son, of Dartford, in the county of Kent, England.” After such publication, the claim made by the said Nobel, or his assignees, in the re-issues before-mentioned, that Nobel discovered that Nitro-Glycerin could be exploded under confinement is invalid, for the fact that Nitro-Glycerin had been described as a similarly explosive preparation to nitro-mannite and nitro-cotton, or gun-cotton, by its discoverer, Sobrero, necessarily involved, and indeed published the circumstance of its only being necessary to subject it to the like conditions of other explosives to effect its explosion. I further state that in four affidavits filed in this Court, on the 25th of February, by Taliaferro P. Shaffner, and T. P. Shaffner and E. A. L. Roberts, jointly, and E. A. L. Roberts singly, and W. M. Shaffner, these partieshave sworn that the mode of exploding at the Oil City Tunnel, December 8th, 1869, was identical and precisely similar to the mode described in a patent granted to said T. P. Shaffner, December 18th, 1868, and re-issued April 13th, 1869, No. 3,375, whilst the very same parties describing the same blasting at said Oil City Tunnel, at the same time, in the same words, and almost word for word throughout, as positively have sworn that it was identical, precisely similar to the mode of blasting described in the re-issues Nos. 3,377, 3,378, 3,379 and 3,380. Neither of these parties were at any time on the ground during the operations therein and thereat (to wit, Oil City Tunnel) performed, except W. M. Shaffner, who was at no time within twenty feet of the parties operating, and who has erroneously stated that water was poured on to the Nitro-Glycerin at the bottom of the hole, which to my certain knowledge was not done. And I ask the attention of this Court, to the affidavits filed in this cause for the plaintiff, and also in a cause of Taliaferro P. Shaffner against the same defendants, filed February 25th, 1870, as completely disproving each other.
Geo. M. Mowbray.
February 26, 1870.
Evidence of Phillip Mackey and Timothy Lynch,foremen of miners at the Hoosac Tunnel.
“We were employed during the month of September, 1868, at the West Shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel, at the time when Colonel Shaffner, the complainant, was making experiments with Nitro-Glycerin in the said tunnel, and assisted him by drilling holes in the rock to receive the cartridges containing Nitro-Glycerin, and tamping said holes. After the explosion of the said Nitro-Glycerin, we witnessed its effects on the miners. These effects were usually to produce a dryness about the throat, and feeling of thirst, which led the miners to take a drink of water; immediately thereafter the miners would vomit, and such vomiting would be followed by severe headache, rendering it necessary for the miner so affected to be removed to the air, and out of the tunnel, and the effects of such headache would last for from twelve to eighteen hours; in fact, the vapors caused by the Nitro-Glycerin exploded by said Shaffner were of such a noxious character as to disable the miners generally from continuing their work.
“During the past three years we have often examined the Nitro-Glycerinmanufactured by G. M. Mowbray, and been regularly employed as foremen of the miners who drilled the holes for receiving the cartridges of Nitro-Glycerin exploded by said Mowbray and by his assistants, and we declare that Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin differs greatly in appearance from that used by said Shaffner; that Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin is colorless almost as water, whereas Shaffner’s was orange-colored; that the explosive effects of said Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin were much greater, so far as we could observe, and that particularly we have noticed the miners do not suffer from any noxious vapors after the firing of blasts of said Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin, and that during the three years the Nitro-Glycerin made by Mowbray has been used in said Tunnel, there has not been a single case where a miner has been compelled to leave his work by reason of the gases given off by the explosion of Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin. And we consider that the Nitro-Glycerin made by said Mowbray, and used in the Tunnel; very much safer to handle, and does not give off noxious gases as compared with the Nitro-Glycerin made by the United States Blasting Oil Company of New York, and used by said Shaffner in the Hoosac Tunnel. And we verily believe that if said Nitro-Glycerin were attempted to be used in the Tunnel, now that so general a use is made of Nitro-Glycerin, it would compel the miners to leave their work and seriously retard the progress of the work by reason thereof, for those who could endure it for a time would have to carry out those who are unable to move after inhaling the gases of the Shaffner Nitro-Glycerin, and thus lose time which would otherwise be employed in doing work.
“We consider it utterly useless to confine the Nitro-Glycerin when fired by Mowbray’s system.”
Philip Mackey,Timothy Lynch.
Feb. 16, 1870.
Evidence of John Van Velsor,Superintendent of Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin worksat the Hoosac Tunnel:
“In October, 1868, I was employed to fit up a Nitro-Glycerin factory at Fairport, Ohio, and instruct the hands in the process of manufacturing under Mowbray’s patent of April 7th, 1868. I endorse the evidence of Messrs. Mackey and Lynch, as to the difference in appearance and smellbetween Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin and that manufactured under Nobel’s patent by the United States Nitro-Glycerin Company.
“I have made under Mowbray’s patent upwards of twenty thousand pounds of Nitro-Glycerin, a great portion of which has been exploded in the Hoosac Tunnel, by a method patented by Mr. Mowbray, dated July 27th, 1869, No. 93,113. I have exploded on numerous occasions the Nitro-Glycerin made at said Mowbray’s factory, without subjecting the same to confinement, by firing a charge of fulminating mercury, say ten or twelve grains, contained in a wooden or copper cap, by means of the electric spark. I have witnessed the use of Nitro-Glycerin at the West Shaft of the Hoosac Tunnel, both in the bench work and in the heading, where the blasters left the Nitro-Glycerin in the drill holes entirely unconfined, such being the general practice at the Hoosac Tunnel, so that in case of the wires not conducting the electricity, or in case of the priming being defective and not firing the fulminating charge, the exploder might be removed from the Nitro-Glycerin without danger to the operator. During the eighteen months I have been in the employ of Mr. Mowbray, manufacturing Nitro-Glycerin, he has only made Nitro-Glycerin by his patented method, and by none other.
John van Velsor.
February 18, 1870.
Evidence of A. D. Hatfield.
“I have been employed in blasting in the railroad tunnel at Oil City, using Nitro-Glycerin furnished by the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Company, manufactured under Mowbray’s patent. In firing and exploding the Nitro-Glycerin I have acted under a license from George M. Mowbray, said Nitro-Glycerin having been exploded without being confined.”
A. D. Hatfield.
February 19, 1870.
Evidence of Charles Lobb,Railroad Contractor.
“I have been engaged in tunnelling through the hill at Oil City, Pa., for the Jamestown and Franklin Railroad, and have used for that purpose Nitro-Glycerin manufactured by the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Company, under Mowbray’s patent of April 7, 1868. I have tried topurchase Nitro-Glycerin from Tal. P. Shaffner, President of the United States Blasting Oil Company, and have been unable to procure the same. Said Shaffner referred me to E. A. L. Roberts for the purchase of Nitro-Glycerin, and on application to said Roberts was unable to obtain any.
Charles Lobb.
February 19, 1870.
Evidence of David Crossley.
“I have been engaged in operating oil wells in Pennsylvania, for ten years. On December 6, 1869, I obtained a torpedo containing six pounds of Nitro-Glycerin from the agent of Robert’s Torpedo Company, which he said was from New York, and of the best quality. I had it put into an oil well where it was exploded by said agent.
“The explosion of said torpedo, in said well, had the effect of reducing the production of oil in said well from two barrels of oil to one and a half barrels of oil in a day of twenty-four hours.
“On the sixteenth day of December, 1869, I put in another torpedo in the same well, which I obtained from the same agent of the same company. It contained the same quantity of Nitro-Glycerin, which was represented to me to be the same as before-mentioned. This torpedo was exploded by the agent in said well on the day last mentioned. Before the explosion of the torpedo in said well, it produced one and a half barrels of oil in a day of twenty-four hours, and the explosion of said torpedo caused no difference in the production of oil from the same well. About the first day of October, 1868, I employed G. M. Mowbray to explode a Nitro-Glycerin torpedo in another well of mine. He exploded said torpedo in said well in my presence. He used in the torpedo six and a quarter pounds of Nitro-Glycerin. The effect of the explosion was to increase the production of said well from five barrels to one hundred barrels in a day of twenty-four hours. After this, Mr. Mowbray put in and exploded other Nitro-Glycerin torpedoes in wells for me, and always with the effect of increasing their production.
“Judging from my knowledge as an expert in operating oil wells and the explosion of torpedoes of all the various kinds therein, I consider that G. M. Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin is far more effective than that of any other party, or that his method of exploding is more effective.”
David Crossley.
February 19, 1870.
Evidence of Jesse Smith,Oil Well Operator.
“In November 1869, I had a torpedo from the Roberts Torpedo Company exploded in my well in Crawford Co., Pa., by their agent. The explosion was an utter failure, one-half the contents of the torpedo still remaining in it; this the agent said was Nitro-Glycerin.”
Jesse Smith.
February 19, 1870.
Evidence of George West.
“I am employed in exploding the Nitro-Glycerin in the holes drilled by the miners in the Oil Creek Tunnel, Pa. I used Nitro-Glycerin from the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Works, which is very different to that of the United States Blasting Oil Company, of New York, and requires a different mode of explosion. I do not use any of the methods described in Nobel’s patent of October 24, and re-issued April 13, 1869, for exploding, for the methods therein described would only explode it, if at all, which I doubt, by hazard, and not with certainty, owing to the peculiar properties of the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin as compared with what I have seen and used as the Shaffner, or Nobel’s Nitro-Glycerin. I endorse all the previous evidence as to the difference between the Nobel or Shaffner Nitro-Glycerin, and that made under Mowbray’s patent. The method I have used to explode this Nitro-Glycerin, at the Oil City Tunnel, consists in what is known as the Austrian battery and electric fuse and fulminating shell; that is, an electric machine, whose exciting plate is made of ebonite or hard rubber, with insulated and conducting wire terminals, which are from ¹/₁₆ to ¹/₃₂ of an inch apart, and between those terminal points a priming composition is inserted, through which the electric spark being passed, such priming ignites, giving a flame (insufficient to explode the Nitro-Glycerin, but) sufficient to inflame a fulminating compound, of which there is a heavy charge, and this fulminating compound being exploded by the priming composition, explodes the Nitro-Glycerin. I have never used the method of exploding with gunpowder as described in the Nobel patent, No. 50,617, in the tunnel aforesaid, nor elsewhere, but I have witnessed attempts to explode the Nitro-Glycerin used under Mowbray’s Patent by means of fuse and gunpowder, as described by Nobel, where that method failed.”
George West.
February 19, 1870.
Sinking the Central Shaft.
Sinking the Central Shaft.
Evidence of H. Julius Smith.
“I am engaged in the business of manufacturing electric fuses and introducing explosive compounds to contractors, miners and torpedo men. I have carefully examined the patents in question re-issued to Tal. P. Shaffner, and, I find, by the modes therein described, it is impossible to fire with certainty, and simultaneously, more than two mines charged with Nitro-Glycerin by any of the methods described in said four re-issued patents; and to effect any explosion of Nitro-Glycerin by any of the methods therein described, and materials delivered to the public by the assignees of the inventor Nobel, it is absolutely essential that the Nitro-Glycerin should be confined as described in the re-issues in question. I have also carefully examined the patent issued to George M. Mowbray, dated July 27th, 1869, and find that the process therein described of exploding Nitro-Glycerin, does away with the necessity for confining Nitro-Glycerin in order to explode it. I endorse previous evidence from my own experience in regard to exploding Nitro-Glycerin when unconfined under Mowbray’s system. I have also manufactured and delivered upward of twenty thousand fuses to the contractors of the Hoosac Tunnel, capable of exploding Nitro-Glycerin when unconfined, at said Hoosac Tunnel. I have been present when the modes described in the re-issues of the Nobel patent have been carefully practised, and entirely failed to fire Nitro-Glycerin, and in one instance immediately after the failure of the Nobel system, I inserted a fuse of the exact description, and with the electric appliances as described in Geo. M. Mowbray’s patent, No. 93,113, dated July 27th, 1869, and the result was a successful explosion. The modes described in the Nobel re-issues, Nos. 3,377, 3,378, 3,379 and 3,380, have been abandoned by all parties with whom I am acquainted, who have important works to carry through, requiring Nitro-Glycerin to be exploded, and particularly by the said Tal. P. Shaffner himself, as I have manufactured, sold and delivered to said Shaffner and others, the apparatus and the exploding electrical fuses for firing Nitro-Glycerin made by said Shaffner, and Nitro-Glycerin made by the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Company, which said fuses or electrical exploders, involve a principle of firing Nitro-Glycerin of great practical importance and very recent development, viz., the principle of concussion, so as to effect theexplosion of the entire mass of Nitro-Glycerin instantaneously, without requiring the explosion to be transmitted from particle to particle, in this respect differing very materially from the methods described in the Nobel re-issues above referred to, which require, first, confinement, and then heat and pressure, to be developed in the presence of the Nitro-Glycerin.”
H. Julius Smith.
February 24, 1870.
Evidence of James H. King.
“I am one of the proprietors of the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Works, situated near Painesville, Ohio. I am personally acquainted with Taliaferro P. Shaffner, and endorse all the evidence of G. M. Mowbray as to Shaffner’s proposal to consolidate the Nobel and Mowbray patents, and his admission that the parties he represented did not claim the exclusive right to manufacture Nitro-Glycerin. I would state that one W. B. Roberts, of the firm of Roberts & Co., of Titusville, Pennsylvania, informed me that he is one of the Trustees of the United States Blasting Oil Company, and that since the commencement of this suit I have delivered to Roberts & Co., at request of W. B. Roberts, twelve hundred pounds, or thereabouts, of Nitro-Glycerin manufactured by the company of which I am a member.
“I manufacture (as a party interested in the Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerin Works of Painesville) under a license from George M. Mowbray, under a patent to said Mowbray, bearing date April 7th, 1868.”
J. H. King.
February 25, 1870.
Evidence of James Dickey.
“I am acquainted with Nobel’s system of blasting. I assisted in making ten explosions in Oil City Tunnel, for Charles Lobb, the contractor. We did not use any of the methods of exploding specified in Nobel’s or Shaffner’s patents. We used the improved electrical machine of H. Julius Smith, patented August 10, 1869, and used the method of firing and fuse described in G. M. Mowbray’s patent of July 27, 1869, and which several methods are entirely different from those mentioned in the several patents claimed by complainant in this case. I used in the blasts made by me, the Nitro-Glycerin manufactured by the Lake ShoreNitro-Glycerin Company, under Geo. M. Mowbray’s patent, No. 76,499, dated April 7, 1868. I endorse the statements of the miners Mackey and Lynch as to the noxious effects and danger arising from the use of Shaffner’s Nitro-Glycerin, and the freedom from the same in that manufactured by Mowbray’s system.”
James Dickey.
February 25, 1870.
Evidence of W. S. Holbrook.
“I was engaged along with James Dickey to perform some blasting in Oil Creek Tunnel. I endorse his statement as to the kind of Nitro-Glycerin and the method of exploding used in said tunnel, and further state that we never used any other process or material.”
W. S. Holbrook.
February 25, 1870.
Evidence of Henry H. Pratt.
“I was foreman at the West Shaft at the Hoosac Tunnel, up to October 15, 1869. In December, 1869, I went to Oil City, Pa., to show Charles Lobb, the contractor for the Jamestown and Franklin Railroad, how to use Nitro-Glycerin for blasting rock. The weather being very cold, warm water was first poured into the holes to prevent the frozen sides of the drilled hole chilling the Nitro-Glycerin. A charge of Nitro-Glycerin was then poured through the water, and a small cartridge of tin being introduced, the charge was fired by means of a frictional electric machine, connected with a priming fuse and a charge of fulminating mercury, being the mode set forth and shewn in the Letters Patent, granted to George M. Mowbray, No. 93,113, and dated July 27th, 1869. I am familiar with the re-issued patents in question, and the mode by which I exploded said Nitro-Glycerin in said tunnel, as above described, is very different from the mode described in the patents re-issued to said U. S. Blasting Oil Company; it would have been utterly impossible to have fired the said three holes in said tunnel by the mode stated in the above referred to re-issues at one and the same moment, as was done by me. I find on examination, that in all the patents granted to Taliaferro P. Shaffner, Nos. 51,671, 51,674, dated December 19th, 1865, the mode of firing a consecutive series of fuses is condemned by said Shaffner, and in patent No. 51,674, that thespecification accompanying said Letters Patent contains the following words: “Figures 6 and 7 represent the heretofore known mode of exploding two or more charges by the same electric current, and the former is shewn as applied to a consecutive series of blasts in line, and the latter to the heading of a tunnel,” such mode being identically and exactly what I practised at the Oil City tunnel, and none other. I confirm all the previous evidence as to the feasibility of exploding pure Nitro-Glycerin when unconfined, and also as to the good qualities of the Mowbray Nitro-Glycerin when compared with that made under the Nobel re-issues.”
H. H Pratt.
February 26, 1870.
Evidence of Otto Burstenbinder,of New York.
“I have been familiar with the use of Nitro-Glycerin since May, 1865, and introduced that article from Hamburgh, Germany, in July, 1865. I witnessed the application of Nitro-Glycerin to blasting purposes about 20 miles from Hamburgh, when many distinguished citizens were present, a full account of the results effected being published afterwards in the principal German newspapers. The mode used to explode Nitro-Glycerin on that occasion was by fuse and cap, the Nitro-Glycerin being confined, in one experiment, in a gas-pipe, plugged at each end, and the fuse led through the plug, and at the end of the fuse there was a percussion cap attached; in another experiment a wooden plug was hollowed out conically inside and the cone was filled with gunpowder; to this plug a fuse was attached and lighted in the usual manner. I myself fired Nitro-Glycerin in the City of New York, on or about the fifteenth day of July, A. D. 1865; this was the first time I used Nitro-Glycerin in the United States, for blasting purposes; the mode of operation was to pour the Nitro-Glycerin into the naked drill hole, and lower a wooden plug charged with gunpowder, on to the Nitro-Glycerin, poured some dry sand on to the plug, and fire a fuse which was situated on the plug in the usual way.
“I am quite familiar with the Nitro-Glycerin manufactured by the United States Blasting Oil Company, under Nobel’s patent, and that manufactured by G. M. Mowbray under his own, and confirm all the previous evidence as to the superiority of Mowbray’s Nitro-Glycerin, in explosive power, in absence of color, absence of smell, absence ofnitrous gases, in greater safety through the greater difficulty of exploding it, and in purity. As an expert of considerable experience in the use of Nitro-Glycerin, I assert that it is entirely unnecessary to confine Nitro-Glycerin in order to explode the same, the explosion being as thorough, and its effects nearly as powerful for blasting purposes, owing to the extreme instantaneous conversion into gas when unconfined, provided a proper charge of fulminate be used.
“I have made the explosion of Nitro-Glycerin, and its application to blasting purposes, my occupation since 1865, and am thoroughly familiar with its properties, use, and the literature referring to it, and I have never heard or read that the Nitro-Glycerin made by Sobrero was incapable of being crystallized, but I verily believe, and have always found, that Nitro-Glycerin congeals when exposed to a moderately low temperature.”
Otto Burstenbinder.
June 7, 1870.
Parties using Nitro-Glycerin are requested to note, that on the 19th of March, 1872, the insolvent U. S. Blasting Oil Company (by the aid of funds drawn, under litigation also, from the Oil producers of Pennsylvania, by the notorious torpedo patents), finding their twenty-four columns of specification and eight claims wholly inapplicable to the mode of using Nitro-Glycerin as now practised, surrendered their re-issues, and, as I am of opinion, by the injudicious oversight of the Examiner, an intimate friend of Mr. Shaffner, obtained four more re-issues, containing twenty columns of specification and seventeen claims, thereby, as eminent counsel advise me, practically abandoning their case up to March 19, 1872.
Counsel further advise me, after full consideration of these last re-issues, that the litigation has entered upon a new phase, and that the original patent, the first re-issues, and the second re-issues, contain in themselves the proof of their utter worthlessness, needing no other evidence to render them void. But a graver and more serious charge rests upon the means by which these anomalies have been put on record in the Patent Office, which will be reviewed by experienced counsel, before a competent tribunal.
For myself, with resources which I hope and intend to keep unimpaired, to conduct this business to its final issue, with a pecuniary interestI am bound to take care of, besides a further amused interest, aroused during the past four years, by the shifts and pretences of this impecunious company to avoid trial of a suit instituted by itself, there will be a courteous desire to accommodate my opponents with the earliest possible verdict, counsel, judges and jury can arrive at, consistent with a complete, full and fair investigation of plaintiff’s pretences and patents.