d a small cap filled with fulminate of mercury, and
tied it tightly up. This done, he laid the cartridge on the top of the
boulder, placed two or three similar cartridges beside it, and covered
all with a small quantity of sand, leaving the other end of the fuse
projecting.

"Why the sand?" asked Bella.

"Because a slight amount of confinement is advantageous," replied Mr
Jones. "If I were to bore a short hole in the stone, and put the
dynamite therein, the result would be still more effective; but the
covering I have put on it will suffice, and will serve all the better to
show the great difference between this explosive and gunpowder."

"But," said my mother, who had a tendency to become suddenly interested
in things when she began to have a faint understanding of them; "but,
Mr Jones, you did not give the powder fair play. If you had covered
_it_ with sand, would not its effect have been more powerful?"

"Not on the stone, madam; it would only have blown off its covering with
violence, that would have been all. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you
will retire behind the shelter of that old beech-tree, I will light the
fuse."

We did as we were desired. The manager lighted the fuse, and followed
us. In a few moments there occurred an explosion so violent that the
huge boulder was shattered into several pieces, which were quite small
enough to be lifted and carted away.

"Most amazing!" exclaimed Bella, with enthusiasm.

It was quite obvious that she had no anticipation of such a thorough
result. Nicholas, too, who I may mention had no natural turn of taste
for such matters, was roused to a state of inquiry.

To a question put by him, Mr Jones explained that, taking its powers
into consideration, dynamite was cheaper than gunpowder, and that it
saved much labour, as it would have taken two men a considerable time to
have bored an ordinary blasthole in the boulder he had just broken up.

I now led the way to another part of the ground on which grew a large
beech-tree, whose giant roots took a firm grasp of the ground. It was a
hundred years old at least; about twelve feet in circumference, and
sixty feet high. One similar tree I had had cut down; but the labour
had been very great, and the removal of the stump excessively
troublesome as well as costly.

Mr Jones now went to work at the forest-giant. In the ground
underneath the tree he ordered Lancey to make a hole with a crowbar.
Into this he pressed