of guhr may be mixed with one of less absorptive power, in the proportions
found by experiment to be the best suited to make a fairly moist dynamite,
but one that will not exude.

The mixing itself is generally performed in a separate house. In a series
of lead-lined tanks the guhr is weighed, placed in a tank, and the nitro-
glycerine poured on to it. The nitro-glycerine may be weighed out in
indiarubber buckets. The whole is then mixed by hand, and well rubbed
between the hands, and afterwards passed through a sieve. At this stage
the dynamite should be dry and powdery, and of a uniform colour.

It is now ready to be made up into cartridges, and should be taken over to
the cartridge huts. These are small buildings surrounded with mounds, and
contain a single cartridge machine. Each hut requires three girls--one to
work the press, and two to wrap up the cartridges. The cartridge press
consists of a short cylinder of the diameter of the cartridge that it is
intended to make. Into this cylinder a piston, pointed with ivory or
lignum vitæ wood, works up and down from a spring worked by a lever. Round
the upper edge of the cylinder is fastened a canvas bag, into which the
powdery dynamite is placed by means of a wooden scoop, and the descending
piston forces the dynamite down the cylinder and out of the open end,
where the compressed dynamite can be broken off at convenient lengths. The
whole machine should be made of gun-metal, and should be upright against
the wall of the building. The two girls, who sit at tables placed on each
side of the press, wrap the cartridges in parchment paper. From these huts
the cartridges are collected by boys every ten minutes or a quarter of an
hour, and taken to the packing room, where they are packed in 5-lb.
cardboard boxes, which are then further packed in deal boxes lined with
indiarubber, and fastened down air tight. The wooden lids are then nailed
down with brass or zinc nails, and a label pasted on the outside giving