"Not particularly--when you know how to do it. In that tank is a
porous asbestos packing saturated with acetone, under pressure.
Thus they carry acetylene safely, for it is dissolved and the
possibility of explosion is minimized.
"This mixing chamber, by which I am holding the torch, where the
oxygen and acetylene mix, is also designed in such a way as to
prevent a flash-back. The best thing about this style of blow-pipe
is the ease with which it can be transported and the curious
purposes--like this--to which it can be put."
He paused a moment to test what had been burnt. The rest of the
safe seemed as firm as ever.
"Humph!" I heard one of them, I think it was Alfonso, mutter. I
resented it, but Kennedy affected not to hear.
"When I shut off the oxygen in this second jet," he resumed, "you
see the torch merely heats the steel. I can get a heat of
approximately sixty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and the
flame will exert a pressure of fifty pounds to the square inch."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Lockwood, who had not heard the suppressed
disapproval of Alfonso, and was watching, in undisguised
admiration at the thing itself, regardless of consequences.
"Kennedy, how did you ever think of such a thing?"
"Why, it's used for welding, you know," answered Craig, as he
continued to work calmly in the growing excitement.
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