Some time ago I had accidentally spilled some black powder on the floor of my basement. I swept it up but got it mixed with some dirt, so I did not want to put it back into the container it came from.
SO, I decided to try an experiment.
You know all those old movies that show the hero goes onto the powder magazine of the enemy to blow it up? He doesn't have any fuses, so he opens one keg of black powder and pours a trail from the door to the place where all the powder barrels are sitting in a nice pile. You know what happens next — he drops a torch on the trail of powder and as it fizzes and smokes and burns and makes its way to the barrels of powder, he makes his escape before the big BOOM!
So I figured I would have no problem setting off the little bit I had in the dirt in the back yard? I lit one match and dropped it on the pile of powder and moved back quick. My wife was watching , expecting something to happen, as I did. NOPE. I tried it again and again. NOPE. Each time the match burned out and the powder remained. FINALLY, I decided to hold the match just a little bit above the powder so the air between it and the match would heat up with the match. AND — SIZZZZ! It went up just like that and — a column of smoke rose above and it was all gone. It was all over REAL FAST, just as when you shoot your flintlock. Pouring a trail of powder and expecting it to act like a fuse is PURE HOLLYWOOD.
AND it is a little harder to set off black powder than we all think, the conditions have to be just right. But we still need to BE CAREFUL.
