How did Alfred Nobel invent dynamite?
Nobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like diatomaceous earth it became safer and more convenient to manipulate, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as dynamite. He next combined nitroglycerin with another high explosive, gun-cotton, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a still more powerful explosive than dynamite. Gelignite, or Blasting gelatin as it was called, was patented in 1876. Some years later Nobel produced ballistite, one of the earliest of the nitroglycerin smokeless gunpowders, containing in its latest forms about equal parts of gun-cotton and nitroglycerin. This powder was a precursor of cordite, and Nobel’s claim that his patent covered the latter was the occasion of vigorously contested law-suits between him and the United Kingdom.
