the diatom factory
Dynamite: a mixture of explosive compounds, oxygen carriers, and fuels, stabilized by diatomaceous earth.
a notebook
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.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200125061107/https://diatoms.org/what-are-diatomsDiatoms are single-celled organisms that produce oxygen from the sun (in a sense, they are a single-cell explosive engine of making oxygen and converting carbon into sugar from CO2).
Fossilized ancient diatoms form a very peculiar substance that is also a lot of different things named as one, diatomaceous earth, and as sea level rises, we may perhaps believe that diatoms will help store carbon, but in fact the deeper they get in the water, perhaps the less functional they are, and who knows what will happen. That's the important thing here... this minuscule algae is its own kind of suspicious package, formidable for explosives and for high-carbon living, until it turns out to stop photosynthesizing, of its own accord. A kind of post-human cellular-scale monument in its own right.
...And where to go find it?
Freshwater diatomite deposits in the Western United States are found in lake beds that formed millions of years ago
(USGS)
According to industry, one of "the planet’s largest worked diatomite mines, and only marine deposits" is located in Lompoc, California.
– j.a.h. | contact me at: javier at berkeley dot edu | https://lnk.bio/jah