Science: Mixer’s Mix-up

In quiet little Pasadena, Calif, one day last week a blast almost materialized that would have shaken the sober townfolk out of their skins. Two blocks from Pasadena’s busiest corner, Crown City Plating Co. electroplates chromium, gold, brass, silver, copper. A swart little man named Wallace Foreman was mixing sulphuric acid and glycerin to make an electrolyte for plating. Already in the tank were 75 gal. of acid and 2 gal. of glycerin. Thinking to add more acid, Wallace Foreman picked up a 3-gal. container, dumped in the contents. Unluckily the container held not sulphuric but nitric acid. Nitric acid plus sulphuric acid plus glycerin makes nitroglycerin.

When the mixture fumed and sputtered like a devil’s cauldron, Wallace Foreman realized his error. He bellowed. Seven other men came running, hastily agreed that 9 gal. of nitroglycerin had been inadvertently manufactured. Nine ounces, they knew, was enough to blow them to bits. There was a mad rush for telephones.

Outside in the sunshine pedestrians gazed perplexedly at the clanging fire engines and screaming police motorcycles converging on Crown City Plating Co. They could see no fire, smell no smoke. They wondered mildly why red-faced policemen were roping off the street for two blocks each way.

Inside the plant two dozen peace officers and firemen tried to think. Assistant Fire Chief James Bolz had an idea. He telephoned to nearby California Institute of Technology, pleaded for an explosives expert. In a few minutes a lone automobile slid to a stop at the scene. Out stepped Professor William Noble Lacey, the brisk embodiment of Science, to the rescue.

Dr. Lacey learned what had happened, nodded, called for soap flakes and ammonia. These he calmly poured into the nitroglycerin, announced that the explosive was “neutralized.” Under his supervision the mixture was carried outside and poured down a sewer.