So-called dynamites usually comprise one or more solid and/or liquid explosive compounds, such as nitrogylcerine, nitroglycol, nitropolyglycerine, dinitrotoluene, trinitrotoluene, nitrocotton, nitro-starch, and the like; one or more oxygen carrying salts, such as ammonium nitrate, sodium nitrate and the like and one of more fuels, such as sulphur, starch, charcoal, wood meal, vegetable ivory meal, bagasse pith and the like. In formulating explosives of the dynamite type, it is necessary in order to obtain the proper efficiency and desired characteristics to so balance the above three types of ingredients that the desired strengths, densities, velocities of detonations, sensitivities to detonation, stabilities, oxygen balances, water resistances and degrees of cohesiveness will be attained
So says a patent application from the Atlas Powder Co, based out of Wilmington DE. Dynamite is a lot of things, one can surmise, and all stored in a word. It is, in the idea of this description, a lot of different mixtures that can arrive at specific, desired properties prioritizing either stability or explosive power.
Essentially, however, one way to put it is that dynamite basically needs a nitrated compound, a source of oxygen, and a burning fuel (and held inside in a diatomaceous earth clay). My previous notes, "the blast factory," explained a surprise at finding out that the fuel would come from a byproduct of button-making, the ivory nut meal —expensive on its own– made from the discarded shells of the ivory nut and, according to the patent, "dependent upon the operation of the vegetable ivory button factories, since the high cost of importing the vegetable ivory nuts would prohibit their importation for use in dynamite alone." The ivory nut comes from a palm, the Metroxylon amicarum, that grows in the "Caroline Islands" (in their colonial toponym), and there is a related palm nut used extensively for artisanal objects that grows across Colombia, Ecuador and Panamá. Roughly, a button factory would have looked like this.
Some additional notes on the role of the "diatomaceous earth" that stabilizes dynamite and is variously described throughout history along the lines of a soil, a sand, a silica, a powder, an earth...etc. It could be said, today, to be a part of the earth's crust itself (as geologists would argue), but even that description is tricky to contain.
