火薬

解説

付記

ウィルソン農務長官が火薬に興味を持つきっかけとなった事件。 ある男が彼に袋を渡し「南米の珍しい穀物の種だ」と説明した。 彼はそれを畑に撒き、土をかぶせた。 だがそれは火薬だった。 寄贈者は種まきが終わるや否や、 火のついたマッチを furrow の端に投げ入れた。 地面で湿った火薬だったが、 火と煙の柱が走り、長官を追った。 彼はしばし呆然としたのち、 驚異的な速さでその場を離れた。 七つの村を貫く細長い影となり、 「慰めはいらぬ！」と響かせながら。 「何だあれは！」と測量士の助手が叫んだ。 測量士はちらりと見て言った。 「あれがワシントン子午線だ」

管理人コメント

Original

An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover, it has the hearty concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture.

Additional notes

Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event that occurred on the Government experimental farm in the District of Columbia. One day, several years ago, a rogue imperfectly reverent of the Secretary's profound attainments and personal character presented him with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the seed of the Flashawful flabbergastor, a Patagonian cereal of great commercial value, admirably adapted to this climate. The good Secretary was instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward inhume it with soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous line of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a lighted match into the furrow at the starting-point. Contact with the earth had somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary saw himself pursued by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke in fierce evolution. He stood for a moment paralyzed and speechless, then he recollected an engagement and, dropping all, absented himself thence with such surprising celerity that to the eyes of spectators along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages, and audibly refusing to be comforted. "Great Scott! what is that?" cried a surveyor's chainman, shading his eyes and gazing at the fading line of agriculturist which bisected his visible horizon. "That," said the surveyor, carelessly glancing at the phenomenon and again centering his attention upon his instrument, "is the Meridian of Washington."